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In Colorado, Blacks Make Up 4 Percent Of The Population And 100 Percent Of Death Row

21 May

death-penalty3-300x220By Nicole Flatow

In March, Colorado came close to becoming the 19th state to abolish the death penalty, but the bill failed after Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) voiced opposition and suggested a possible veto. A few months later, Colorado’s death penalty is still firmly in place, and the state is poised to complete what would be only the second execution in 45 years (the last was in 1997). Few dispute that Nathan Dunlap committed a horrific crime and murdered several people at a Chuck E. Cheese. But judges, university professors, and other prominent state leaders are urging Gov. Hickenlooper to commute Dunlap’s sentence, both because crucial errors that defined his trial may have led him to get a harsher sentence than others, and because killing anyone under the perverted state system would be a miscarriage of justice. According to letters filed with Hickenlooper’s office:

  • All three people on death row are black men. In a state that is only 4.3% African American, Colorado’s death row is 100% African American.
  • All three men on death are from the same one county, out of Colorado’s 64.
  • All three men committed their crime when they were under the age of 21.
  • Two law professors who studied Colorado’s application of the death penalty concluded it was unconstitutional, after finding that prosecutors pursue the death penalty in less than one percent of the cases where it is an option, and that the state failed to set “clear statutory standards for distinguishing between the few who are executed and the many who commit murder.”

“It appears that race, geography and youth largely determines who gets the death penalty in Colorado,” wrote a group of NAACP leaders in a letter urging Gov. Hickenlooper to grant clemency. They note that not a single black juror served on the panel that sentenced Dunlap to death.

In addition to the injustices that define the Colorado system, a group of former Colorado judges also point out that Dunlap’s bipolar disorder and psychotic tendencies were not even mentioned at trial. In fact, according to their letter, Dunlap’s lawyer told the jury that there was no explanation for his violence.

The judges add that “no clear evidence exists that the death penalty deters violent crime. What it does in our current system, as in this case, is to drain our judicial system of millions of dollars as mandatory appeals drag on for decades.” Studies have shown that the death penalty does not lower the homicide rate. In fact, the murder rate is lower in states without the death penalty. Hickenlooper says he continues to wrestle with the death penalty, and whether to commute Dunlap’s sentence.

Source

Map: Closing Schools Are Overwhelmingly in Minority Neighborhoods

17 May

I’ve written before about the unequal geographical distribution of D.C. Public Schools’ planned school closures, with wards 5 and 7 bearing the brunt. But here’s a map that puts the closures in a new light:
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The map was created by University of the District of Columbia social sciences professor Amanda Huron, who shared a digital version with Washington City Paper. It shows that all but two of the schools slated for closure are in census tracts that are more than 50 percent black and Hispanic. And Huron points out that even the two exceptions aren’t really exceptions: Although Shaw Middle School is in a census tract that’s only 22 percent black and 9 percent Hispanic, she says, the school itself is 82 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic. Likewise, the Prospect Learning Center’s census tract is just 40 percent black and 5 percent Hispanic, but the student body is 95 percent black and 5 percent Hispanic.

What’s the reason for this? It probably has more to do with geography than with race per se: Parents in the poorer, eastern neighborhoods of the city—which tend to be overwhelmingly black—are more likely to want to send their kids to charter or out-of-boundary schools, to get them away from rougher schools or rougher streets on the way to school or both. This doesn’t happen as much at schools in richer parts of town, like Tenleytown’s Woodrow Wilson High School. So schools in poorer (and, yes, blacker and more Hispanic) neighborhoods get depopulated  and close down.

School choice can be a blessing for kids in difficult neighborhoods—but it can be a curse for the schools in those neighborhoods. The best solution, of course, would be to make those schools competitive with the best ones in the western part of the city. But absent that, a thinning out of the schools in poorer neighborhoods is almost inevitable.

Source

Former U.S.-Backed Military Dictator Efrain Rios Montt Found Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala

11 May

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Efraín Ríos Montt held to account for abuses in campaign that killed an estimated 200,000 and led to 45,000 disappearances

The former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide on Friday after a court found him guilty of crimes against humanity for his role in the slaughter of 1,771 Mayan Ixils in the 1980s. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

It is the first time a former head of state has been found guilty of genocide in their own country.

“We are convinced that the acts the Ixil suffered constitute the crime of genocide,” said Judge Yazmin Barrios, adding that Ríos Montt “had knowledge of what was happening and did nothing to stop it”.

The trial was the first time a former head of government has been held to account in Guatemala for the abuses carried out during a 36-year conflict that killed an estimated 200,000 people and led to 45,000 other “disappearances”.

The vast majority of the victims were members of indigenous groups that make up about half of the population.

The verdict was hailed by victims’ groups and human rights organisations as a step towards healing the psychological wounds from one of Latin America’s bloodiest civil wars.

His co-defendant, former intelligence chief José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, was cleared by the court.

“This is healthy for Guatemala because it helps us free our demons,” said Helen Mack, a businesswoman and prominent human rights activist whose sister, an anthropologist, was killed by the Guatemalan army in 1990.

Pascal Paradis, director of Lawyers Without Borders Canada, which has advised the victims’ lawyers throughout the case, said the fact the trial happened at all was a big achievement.

“It was quite a feat to get past the amnesty law that was passed when Guatemala signed a peace deal in 1996 to end its 36-year war. Impunity is no longer the rule,” he said.

Others said the jailing of the 86-year-old was not enough, given the suffering of the victims.

“What I want is for Ríos to feel the pain we felt,” said Elena de Paz Santiago, who was 12 when she and her mother fled a massacre in their village in 1982.

They hid in the mountains and survived by eating roots and wild plants for months, before being caught and taken to an army outpost to cook and clean for the soldiers. Her mother died while they were both being gang-raped and was later buried in a mass grave.

“He [Rios Montt] will go to jail but he will have food. We nearly starved hiding out in the mountains,” she said in an interview outside the courtroom.

The legal battle is also far from over and Ríos Montt is expected to appeal.

“We still have a long way to go,” said Edwin Canil, a legal adviser to the victims who helped build the case against Rios Montt and is himself a survivor of a massacre in 1982.

The defence team challenged the validity of the trial throughout the three weeks of hearings.

Zury Rios, the former dictator’s daughter, complained of the “legal mismanagement” of the trial by the three-judge panel and what she called the “arbitrary form” in which it was conducted.

Source

Nazi cop runs a police state in Arizona town

9 May
Image from uapd.arizona.edu

Image from uapd.arizona.edu

Some residents in a small Arizona city are saying that the term “police state” is more than just a metaphor for the authoritarian rule they feel that they are being more and more subjected to in tiny town just east of the California border.

A closed-door meeting over the weekend in Quartzsite, AZ allegedly led to the town council declaring a state of emergency and the removal of the mayor.

The decision reportedly comes after a video of a town resident being escorted out of an open meeting by police went viral on the Web and caused local officials to receive numerous death threats.

Jennifer ‘Jade’ Jones had the floor at a Quartzsite town meeting on June 28 when she became vocal about her disagreement with recent tax increases in the area. The town had recently made the decision to raise water and sewage fees for the first time in a decade, much to the outrage of the residents of the 70 mobile-home parks that help make up the 3,500-person population in Quartzsite. As Jones spoke out against the tax hike, Councilman Joe Winslow demanded she vacate the building or be escorted out by police.

A resulting disagreement between the two parties escalated when Mayor Ed Foster demanded that police continue to let her speak, interjecting, “Officer, that woman has the floor. You’re violating my rules of order here. Sergeant, I have control of the meeting.”

Despite the mayor’s plea, Police Chief Jeff Gilbert ordered Jones removed. She suffered a torn ligament as she was taken into custody and thus admitted to a local hospital.

The entire incident was captured on video, and the YouTube clip of the event has done little to diminish what the citizens are saying is becoming more and more of a police state.

Following a series of threats caused by the video, Mayor Foster told The Associated Press on Monday that the town council decided at an impromptu meeting to declare a state of emergency the day before. The video, says the local PD, was “inciting riots.”

Additionally, says Foster, Police Chief Gilbert is now in charge of the city.

“I’m going to tell you frankly, this council is out of control,” Foster says to the AP.

And what does that make the mayor?

“Deputy chief executive of nothing right now,” he says.

Mayor Foster has tells the Parker Pioneer that he refused a police escort to town hall over the weekend, only to drive himself and see that an illegal meeting was taking place. He refused to participate and the doors were locked once he said he wouldn’t partake.

“If there was an illegal meeting Sunday, any business conducted in that business is therefore illegal, null and void,” World Net Daily reports Foster to say.

“I want to see open government, not running behind locked doors,” says Foster, reports a local ABC affiliate.

Not only is that government far from open, but they are also adamantly opposed to Mayor Foster’s role in town affairs. Now, supposedly, Foster has been ousted from his position.

The mayor says that the decision to remove him comes after he asked for an investigation of the city staff, including the police department, after recent citizen reports of an increased authoritarian state.

To Foster, however, the local legislature isn’t interested in his take.

“They don’t think I should have freedom of speech,” he says.

Foster adds to the Daily Caller that he didn’t think the alleged threats that sprung from the video were legitimate.

“I have not seen any threatening emails sent to them,” Foster says. “I mean: you’re in public life, and if you are in public life, you have to get used to it.”

Not only has the mayor asked to see these emails, but he is continuing to press local lawmakers to explain a series of paychecks that have been issued to unnamed, supposed townspeople for two decades now. The mayors claims the council has precluded him from examining town payroll papers.

Mayor Foster previously served in the US Marines and worked as an engineer for the Wrigley Chewing Gum company.

As tensions get higher between his allies and the PD and town council, Foster is only continuing to speak out.

“He’s just an insane person, that chief of police,” Foster tells World Net Daily of Chief Gilbert. “He’s a Nazi … he’s completely out of control. He thinks he’s running the town.”

Quartzsite Police Association President Sergeant William Ponce agrees with Foster, but the two officials seem to be in the minority when it comes to the rest of the higher-ups in town. Sgt. Ponce’s Associate also attests that Chief Gilbert and his department have violated numerous policies against the townspeople.

“’He’d say, ‘This person has violations X-Y-Z on their vehicle; stop and give them the violations,’” Ponce tells the Daily Caller. “A majority of the time they were political opponents. We’ve gone up to him and expressed that we can’t go out and enforce that, and as soon as we told him he’d get angry and walk away.”

A letter from the Quartzsite Police Association also makes claims that Town Manager Alex Taft tried to thwart investigations into illegal activity carried out by the PD.

“People in town are scared to death,” says Foster about the Department. “It’s just a clear pattern of harassment and intimidation by this government. These people have run this town like they owned it. It’s got to be fixed and I’m not going to quit until I see them in jail.”

“A lady from England said to me, ‘How can America be a beacon of freedom in the world if we don’t have freedom of speech in Quartzsite?’” Foster tells the Pioneer.

Source

Ray Kelly: By the Department’s Count, African-Americans are being “understopped”

7 May

raykellyBY AZI PAYBARAH

Bloomberg said NYPD critics are unfairly compare the number of black and Latino men stopped to the number of black and Latino men in the general population, whereas they should be comparing the numbers of stops to the descriptions of suspects.

Kelly, in his interview, said that if you use that methodology, “African-Americans are being understopped.”

A year ago, Kelly went even further, telling reporters people in “communities of color” actually “want more” stop-and-frisks. 

That kind of rhetoric will effectively require a response from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is the only Democratic mayoral candidate who wants Kelly to stay on as commissioner and also wants the department to make fewer stops.

Yesterday, after she took credit for a recent reduction in the number of stop-and-frisks, Quinn avoided answering a reporter’s question yesterday about whether she would continue that reduction as mayor.

Source

America’s “Most Wanted” Terrorist: An Open Letter From Assata

6 May

signs_change_news

My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.

I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive in US prisons. According to the report:

‘The FBI and the New York Police Department in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement personnel and widely circulated such charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the government and its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police officers. This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur’s relationship to it was widely circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI’s most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became a ‘shoot-to-kill’ target.”

I was falsely accused in six different “criminal cases” and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was certainly not the case. It only meant that the “evidence” presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail light.” Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.

The U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the public’s perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today.

On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of’ “justice” for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States. (See attached Letter to the Pope).

In January of 1998, during the pope’s visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I saw in the United States and it’s treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years of being victimized by the “establishment” media it was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell “my side of the story.” Instead of an interview with me, what took place was a “staged media event” in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this “exclusive interview series” on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this “exclusive interview” on black radio stations and also placed notices in local newspapers.

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has historically played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in truth freedom, To publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.

Assata Shakur Havana, Cuba

Source

FBI adds 65-year-old Black Panther to Most Wanted Terrorists list

5 May
Joanne Chesimard

Joanne Chesimard

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has announced that Joanne Chesimard has been added to its Most Wanted Terrorists list. Thursday’s bulletin gave Chesimard, a black nationalist, the dubious distinction of being the first woman to be placed on the list.

Chesimard, better known as Assata Shakur, was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army when, on May 2, 1973, she was driving through New Jersey with two others. The car was pulled over for a broken taillight and a gunfight ensued with police. One officer and one man from Shakur’s group were killed. 

Despite being injured, she managed to flee from the scene but was eventually arrested and, in 1977, convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. But in 1979, The New York Times reported, she “escaped from Clinton Correctional Institute for Women after three male visitors drew handguns, kidnapped two guards and seized a prison minibus in order to drive out of the grounds to two getaway cars. They left the guards handcuffed but unharmed.” 

It’s been widely speculated that Shakur was aided in her escape by the Black Liberation Army. William Kunstler, her trial lawyer, told reporters at the time that Shakur’s health had declined in prison.

“I was very happy that she escaped because I thought she was unfairly tried,” he said, as quoted by the Gothamist. 

Her surviving accomplice, Sundiata Acoli, born Clark Edward Squire, is still held in a federal prison after being denied parole several times. 

In 1984 Shakur was granted asylum by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who called the charges against her “an infamous lie.” Originally from the Queens section of New York City, Shakur explained her situation on her website.

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“My name is Assata (“she who struggles”) Olugbala (“for the people”) Shakur (“the thankful one”), and I am a 20th Century escaped slave,” she wrote. “Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the US government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one.” 

She went on to admit involvement with the Black Panther Party and described the FBI’s intention to “destroy it and its leaders and activists.” 

Federal and New Jersey law enforcement announced during Thursday’s news conference that they had doubled the reward for information leading to Shakur’s capture from $1 million to $2 million. Along with being the first female named to the list, she is only the second domestic ‘terrorist’ on the list, which was assembled to identify those responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

“We would be naïve to think there’s not some communication between her and some of those people she used to run around with today,” said Aaron Ford, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Newark, New Jersey. 

He did not elaborate on the reasoning behind the seemingly sudden decision to add Shakur, now 65 years old, to the list. New Jersey law enforcement has previously campaigned for her extradition, appealing to Pope John Paul II when he traveled to Cuba in 1998.  

State Police superintendent Colonel Rick Fuentes may have shed light on authorities’ reinvigorated motivation to apprehend Shakur, however. 

“To this day, from her safe haven in Cuba, Shakur has been given a pulpit to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary,” Fuentes said. “We also have reason to believe that she has established association with other international terrorist organizations.” 

Fuentes did not mention what evidence the New Jersey state police had connecting Fuentes to international terror syndicates, but Ford was careful to note that the US – still struggling to reform its relationship with Cuba – has little hope the country will comply with American requests. 

“Currently it’s not good,” Ford said during the press event. “We don’t enjoy a great extradition status with that country.”

Source

Mountain Dew Pulls Terrible Racist Ad

3 May
Tyler, the Creator Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Tyler, the Creator
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

By 

Mountain Dew recently released three new ads featuring a crazed goat voiced by rapper Tyler, the Creator, who was also the mastermind behind the commercials. The goat is seen attacking a waitress after she gives him the soda, fleeing a cop after getting caught with a car trunk full of the soda, and then threatening that waitress from behind the window of a criminal lineup after his arrest. That final ad has now been pulled by the beverage company amidst howls that it is racist and misogynistic. And those howls were right. What happened?

In the ad, the waitress, covered in bandages and hobbling on crutches, is asked by the detective to identify her assailant from a lineup of several black “thugs” and the goat. “You shoulda gave me some mo’,” he sleazily whispers to her, supposedly in reference to the soda. “Keep yo’ mouth shut,” he continues as she screams, frightened. “I’mma get outta here and I’mma do you up.” Such misguided attempts to make fun out of violence against women really have no place in commercials, as should be entirely obvious. What’s more, the ad reinforces racist stereotypes about black male aggression. Tyler’s manager, in a statement defending the rapper’s intentions, refers to his client as someone who “grew up on Dave Chappelle.” So did I. But Chappelle used a half-hour show and occasional hour-long comedy specials to get his (insightful, sometimes controversial) points across. Not 60-second TV spots pushing soda.

If you’re familiar with Tyler, the Creator, the face and leader of the hip-hop collective Odd Future, you know that shock and offense are the tools of his trade. Known for his violent lyrics (“You’ll see the meaning of stalking/ when I pop out the dark to find you/ And that new dude that you’re seeing with an attitude/ Then proceed to fuck up your evening”), the rapper is committed to crossing boundaries of taste and decency. “I’m not homophobic,” he once said of his music, “I just think ‘faggot’ hits and hurts people.” The rapper confounds critics, who have debated whether he’s a smart, intuitive artist, or a vacuous provocateur. I tend to the latter opinion. We can debate that. It’s a good argument for critics to have. And Tyler the Creator can create the music and “art” he wants to create. We don’t have to like it.

But when a corporation like PepsiCo—whose ad-makers were surely aware of Tyler’s music beforehand—decide to exploit that button-pushing for their own money-making ends, they deserve to be called out for it. Tyler tweeted in March: “They let my stupid ideas come to life, thanks Dew!” And they are indeed pretty stupid ideas. Everything in the ad is left on the surface, unexamined. The frightened, beaten white woman. The goat, coded as black, due to the “gangsta” vernacular it employs.

Perhaps PepsiCo were as ignorant as the people behind Ashton Kutcher’s Popchips ad, in which, for reasons still unknown, the actor donned brownface and a strained Indian accent. Ignorance is the go-to excuse companies employ when called out for their foolishness. And maybe they assumed that because Tyler himself is black, the ad itself wouldn’t be deemed racially offensive. (If so, that was a terrible and wrongheaded assumption to make.) What seems more likely is that they knew what they were in for and wanted to spark some controversy—the better to sell their soda.

Perhaps PepsiCo accomplished that. The other two commercials that are meant to precede the pulled ad are still in rotation. And those stories put the final ad into better context—but they don’t redeem it. Hopefully, other companies will think twice before giving birth to any more of Tyler’s empty ideas.

Update, May 2, 2013: This post originally included video of the three ads for Mountain Dew by Tyler the Creator. PepsiCo has had them removed.

Source

Celebrate International Workers’ Day 2013!

1 May

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Today we celebrate May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, a holiday celebrated by working people worldwide.

This day began in commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, where police fired upon workers striking for an eight-hour-day. Since then it has become a global celebration of the labor union movement as well as the economic and social gains made by workers.

Without labor, nothing is built, nothing prospers, nothing grows. Wealth, culture, technology, food, furniture, cars, houses, monuments—the workers have made all these things. All development since the beginning of history has been the result of human labor. The first historical act by a human being was production.

Despite this, this continual talk about the nonexistent “middle class” coming from the television has caused a loss of class identity among the American people. We live in an age where the phrase “working class” is a smear.

Let us create and consolidate organizations of workers to continue the legacy of May Day. The workers in every country, including America, must combat layoffs and rising unemployment while fighting for better working conditions, social and political rights, respect, a living wage and social support for the basic needs of other workers. Through its actions the working class is able to paving the way for the revolutionary transformation of the whole society.

Let us make May Day, 2013 a day to reinforce our revolutionary and independent spirit through unity and struggle. The age of working people having pride and self-confidence has begun!

127 years of May Day!

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MAY DAY IN CHICAGO

It was a sunny and unseasonably warm day in Chicago last Wednesday as upwards of 5,000 people through the downtown streets in celebration of May Day and in order to demand immigrant rights and an end to forcible deportations.

Organized by the Chicago May Day Coalition, an alliance spearheaded by several Latino, immigrant’s rights, and labor organizations; and including a number of religious and social justice groups, the 2013 May Day March and Rally was the latest in a series of May Day events in Chicago which, not only commemorate the sacrifice and the legacy of the Haymarket Martyrs; but, also strongly focus on immigrant workers’ rights and struggles. The largest and most successful of the annual marches was the 2006 march when an estimated one million workers of all nationalities marched across town and gathered in the Loop to demand an end to the deportation of immigrant workers.

This year’s May Day Coalition had issued the following statement (in Spanish and English) before the march:

Primero de Mayo – May Day
Día Internacional de los Trabajadores -
International Workers Day

Los trabajadores inmigrantes en Chicago lucharon en 1886 por la jornada de 8 horas de trabajo.
Los trabajadores inmigrantes derrotamos en 2006 la propuesta del Partido Republicano de volver un crimen federal no tener papeles en Estados Unidos.
¡Este año, los trabajadores inmigrantes tenemos que conseguir la ¡LEGALIZACION DE TODOS los indocumentados y tenemos que PARAR LAS REDADAS!

¡YA ES HORA!

El Primero de Mayo de 2013, Día Internacional de los Trabajadores, ningún trabajador internacional debe trabajar; ¡VAMOS TODOS A MARCHAR!
Vamos a marchar por la legalización, contra el cierre de las escuelas públicas, por el aumento del salario mínimo; vamos a marchar con los sindicatos, con las organizaciones de barrio, con los clubes de oriundos.
La cita es el miércoles Primero de Mayo en el Parque Unión (Ashland y Lake), a las 2 de la tarde, para comenzar a marchar a las 3 de la tarde a la Plaza Federal (Jackson y LaSalle). Mítin en la Plaza Federal a las 4 y media de la tarde.

May Day – International Workers Day

Immigrant workers in Chicago fought in 1886 for the 8 hour workday. We won!
Immigrant workers in 2006 fought against Jim Sensenbrenner’s bill to make a federal crime t olive in the United States without immigration papers. We Won!
This year, immigrant workers have to win LEGALIZATION FOR ALL and we have to STOP DEPORTATIONS!

This Is The Time!

On May Day 2013, International Workers Day, No International Worker will go to Work… WE WILL ALL MARCH FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM!
We will march for legalization for all International workers in the US; we will march against public schools closings; we will march to raise the minimum wage; we will march with the labor unions, with community and neighborhood organizations, with hometown associations.
We will meet on Wednesday, May First, at Union Park (Ashland and Lake), at 2 pm, and we will march at 3 pm to Federal Plaza (Jackson and LaSalle). Rally at Federal Plaza at 4:30 pm.

The march itself was energetic, but generally peaceful – according to official sources only a handful of arrests were made. Although the strongest demand voiced at that the march was for an end to deportations, and for full legalization of undocumented workers, slogans addressing various issues such as the Chicago School closings, police violence, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan and US intervention in the Middle East were also raised. At the conclusion of the march, a mass rally was held at Daley Plaza which featured addresses by immigrant’s rights and labor representatives, and US Senator Dick Durbin (D).

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Of Flags & Butter: An Analysis of American White Supremacy Through Symbols

23 Apr

confederate butter

American racism and white supremacy is not limited to the physical realm, but is also a mental phenomenon – it is possible for the mind to be colonized by racist and white supremacist ideology, just as it is possible for entire nations and peoples to be colonized and occupied by foreign powers. The ideological superstructure of a nation can thus be used as a weapon by a dominant racist ideology in order to reinforce the rule of a dominant set of ideas; those belonging to the ruling class of society which benefits from the status quo of institutionalized racism against non-European groups and modes of thought. Examples of this use of prominent symbols in the continuing process of racial objectification are the issues regarding display of the Confederate flag and the “Indian maiden” mascot for Land O’Lakes brand butter. The battle flag of the Confederate States of America and the logo of Land O’Lakes demonstrate the use of symbols to perpetuate and reinforce white supremacy in the realm of ideas through the technique of racist stereotyping and whitewashing of history, respectively. Both examples are important symbols of race that have their roots in historical events, but remain relevant to contemporary Americans.

Native scholar and activist Ward Churchill aptly describes perpetuating and implementing a white supremacist agenda through the spreading of such symbols in his book, From a Native Son: Selected Essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995. “As was established in the Streicher precedent at Nuremberg, the cause and effect relationship between racist propaganda on the one hand and genocidal policy implementation on the other is quite plain” (Churchill 450). He mentions specifically that “Land-o-Lakes [sic] finds it appropriate to market its butter through use of a stereotyped image of an ‘Indian Princess’ on the wrapper” (Churchill 450). Stereotypical and degrading images of racial minorities have been used to sell products in the United States for centuries, serving the interests of the capitalist class by selling the products themselves and reinforcing white supremacy through the use of images as an added bonus. As these stereotypical images are often associated with products that people have come to know and love, discussing the racist implications of the images and logos themselves remains a touchy subject. From Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima to Chiquita Bananas and the recent controversial Brooklyn restaurant selling Obama Fried Chicken, food commodities do not stand above promoting stereotypes and reinforcing white supremacy in American society. Racist imagery and symbols are visible everywhere, one primary example being right in the dairy section of your local grocery store – the Land O’Lakes butter mascot known as the “Indian maiden.”

Land O’Lakes Inc. itself is based in Minnesota, the home territory of the fictional Native woman Minnehaha and the real-life legend Hiawatha. Land O’Lakes decided in 1928 to capitalize on this history to sell their product, and have resisted many attempts and petitions by activists to change their logo. The “Land O Lakes” logo on their butter and other products features the famous image of a Native American women on her knees in a servile manner presenting the butter to the customer. The Native woman herself is in a traditional buckskin outfit with beaded embroidery, with two braids in her stereotypically long, straight black hair, and also wear a headdress with feathers sticking upwards. She bears a bright and cheery smile as she presents the product. The background of the logo features lakes and pines in a relaxing natural setting. The image itself is well-known and widely spread. The Land O’Lakes company is one the largest producers of dairy products such as butter and cheese in the United States, and the logo featuring the Native woman has been a mainstay of their butter’s packaging since 1928. Despite controversy, they have repeatedly refused to change it. What message does the content of the logo itself send?

The appearance of the “Indian maiden” owes more to stereotypes of Native peoples and culture promoted in the media and Hollywood than it does any reality of the Native nations that inhabited the plains of North America. The name itself “Land O Lakes” comes from a phrase used by European settlers to describe Minnesota – the land of ten thousand lakes. The name used by the company for this logo is the “Indian maiden,” a term deemed derogatory today, with most Natives preferring the terms “Native peoples” or “first nations.” The term “Indian” to mean the Indigenous nations of the Americas is based upon the European settlers’ mistaken belief they had landed in the West Indies. The design of the logo on Land O’Lakes butter exploits racist stereotypes of Native American culture and the mascot’s servile pose serves to place both Natives and women into a position of servitude to the customer, presenting them with a product as a servant would. The kneeling of the “Indian maiden” clearly puts her in a position of service to a higher power.

Every aspect of the Native woman in the logo is based on American stereotypes of Natives, from her animal skin outfit and beads, to her headdress and hair style, and even the to the idea of the slender, cheerful and naive Native princess character, epitomized in other infamous portrayals of this archetype such as the wildly inaccurate adaptations of the story of Pocahontas. The wide smile donned by the woman in the logo serves an ideological purpose as well, quite literally putting a smile on a history of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Natives. The image of the Native woman offering the butter in a servile pose is offered as a positive image, associated with a widely-consumed food product. It amounts to dehumanization of Natives and women and the further stereotyping of an entire culture, all for the purpose of selling a commodity. In this equation, someone is clearly benefiting from having descendents of Europeans ignorant about Native Americans.

The Land O’Lakes logo clearly promotes a simplistic characterization of both the history and the present of Native Americans. The efforts at cultural genocide by the contemporary United States government and U.S. companies are undeniably “concerted, sustained, and in some ways accelerating effort has gone into making Indians unreal” (Churchill 450). White supremacy does not have to be such an overt practice as vocally advocating genocide – why bother with such incriminating statements when actions speak louder than words? Propaganda through the use of symbols such as these can influence perception and opinion more effectively in a thousand subtle ways during everyday activity. Consciously or unconsciously, these images help shape our views of reality, sometimes on a mass scale. “Some of the most common stereotyping traps are various forms of romanticization; historical inaccuracies; stereotyping by omission; and simplistic characterizations” (MediaSmarts). The issue of the racist or chauvinist nature of such symbols is by no means a small issue. Symbols are powerful tools to communicate messages in a compact form, including messages of stereotypes and white supremacy.

The article “Common Portrayals of Aboriginal People” demonstrates the influence of such widely consumed media: “[f]or over a hundred years, Westerns and documentaries have shaped the public’s perception of Native people” (MediaSmarts). The Land O’Lakes butter logo can be understood in the context of its historical roots; that of both physical genocide against Native Americans and the cultural genocide within the mental realm. Even more troublesome is the origin of the Native princess archetype in the first place. “The Indian Princess is the Native beauty who is sympathetic enough to the white man’s quest to be lured away from her group to marry into his culture and further his mission to civilize her people” (MediaSmarts). From examining the logo, we can see that the composite imagery presented on Land O’Lakes butter falls within the criteria of this archetype.

Another example of a popularized and hotly debated symbol of racism is the infamous battle flag of the Confederate States of America, an unrecognized separatist state that existed from 1861-1865 in the southern slave states which declared their secession from the United States, has been the source of strong controversy and debate on the nature of symbols in perpetuating racism. Since the end of the American Civil War, use of the flag has continued, both in the form of personal use of the Confederate battle flag and the use of variant flags with the “stars and bars” and battle flag design as basis for the state flags of Southern U.S. states, such as Mississippi and Georgia, which were once part of the pro-slavery Confederacy.

Despite the flag’s history of being the battle standard for the slave states, “the flag is seen by some Southerners simply as a symbol of Southern pride, it is often used by racists to represent white domination of African-Americans” (Anti-Defamation League, Hate on Display). The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) classifies the flag as a general racist symbol and a common standard to use for racist and white nationalist groups who believe in a revanchist South. The manifestations of this phenomenon are contemporary but once again rooted in the historical context from which they arose. The design is a dark blue St. George’s Cross on a red field. The flag’s stars represent the states of the Confederacy. The popularized flag is not the state flag of the Confederacy, but rather the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, the primary military force for the Confederacy in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. This Army of Northern Virginia battle flag was also adopted by many other Confederate military units which fought in the Civil War. The flag, therefore, is not a governmental or official flag of the Confederacy, but specifically a military standard, often being called the “Battle Flag.” In Germany and many other countries, display of the Nazi swastika and other fascist symbols has been outlawed except for scholarly reasons. This option should be considered in an American context in order to suppress the intentional glorification of slavery and racism.

The Confederate flag is undeniably a racist symbol, not primarily a cultural one. Many hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan use the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of white supremacism, and southern states have chosen to display variants based on the Confederate flags on state property. The historical role played by the military flag in question addresses a history of the American continent that is seldom told and might undermine the common perception of the United States as a bastion of freedom, democracy and justice in the world. This being the case, there is a historical falsification of the Civil War being promoted here. After the end of the Civil War, groups like the KKK unleashed a campaign of racist terror across the American South during Reconstruction. There is little attention given to these days, or to how widespread institutionalized racism was and is in the United States, and myths of a “post-racial society” abound.

Historical revisionists and Southern nationalists, as well as various neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups, now weave together stories of the Ku Klux Klan as a benevolent human rights organization, of the South’s independent spirit, and, most of all, of the supposed social and racial progress of the system of the Confederate States of America. The entire exercise of pretending to be uncertain about the racist implications of the Confederate flag only serves to muddle the issue of America’s slave history even more. The dominant ideology, to exist, must perpetuate the myth that the United States of America ever saw the emergence of white supremacy as an institution, never fought a war over slavery, never failed at Reconstruction and usher in the Jim Crow laws, and doesn’t have a problem with racism today. The main feelings evoked by the display of the Confederate flag are prejudicial and therefore the symbol itself must be considered to promote discrimination. Even when viewed by those with no obvious prejudice, the symbol encourages stereotypical and racist views.

The history of the Confederate States of America is undeniably connected with slavery and oppression of Africans. Some people may claim the flag represents the Southern heritage. But for black Americans, the flag symbolizes a dark period of history filled with slavery, racist terrorism, lynching, oppression and racial apartheid, all approved at the highest levels of the American government. As has been demonstrated, the Confederate battle flag never actually represented the Confederate government. The many versions of Confederate flags depended on the region they were used in and what Southern regiment they represented. The blatant waving of the so-called “rebel” or “Dixie” flag, a flag of bloodshed and war, a battle flag specifically designed for violence in defense of slavery, cannot help but encourage racist attitudes.

Both the Land O’Lakes logo and the Confederate battle flag are symbols which hold the power to communicate racist messages. Part of the cultural genocide in the United States for such oppressed groups is the denial of any continuing reality of unconscious racism and white supremacist thought. The symbol has the greatest capacity to influence perceptions and attitudes in the South. The meaning of the Confederate flag is not limited to history or fetishization of a particular “heritage,” but is far more complex. Advocates of such symbols as the flag’s display may argue that to outlaw or forbid their display may in of itself be whitewashing of the history of slavery and downplaying the significance of the Civil War. However, since these particular legal measures against such hateful imagery in countries such as Germany include display and recording for scholarly and historical reasons, the most emphatic proponents of display the symbol can reasonably be expected to have much darker motivations.

On the one hand, you have the Land O’Lakes logo, which appears to be a bright, warm and generous depiction of a Native woman offering butter but hides one example of many of white supremacy in American culture, and on the other, you have the militaristic battle flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, aggressively emblazoned with its signature red and dark blue, being justified as heritage. In both cases a rather insidious agenda of embedding white supremacy into such innocent, appealing or romanticized symbols can be discerned. There can be no assertion these symbols go without much notice – the Land O’Lakes logo with the “Indian maiden,” as she continues to be referred to by the company, has continued to adorn all their products. The Confederate flag continues to be the basis for the flags of more than a dozen U.S. states and the defining symbol for the white nationalist movement in the U.S. Although both symbols can be considered more contemporary manifestations, by no means can it be said that the many years since their origin have reduced their importance, meaning or potency as symbols.

When discussing the potential racist impact of these symbols, the issue that is often skirted and ignored in favor of individualistic reasons of personal motivation and individual freedom is that of “color blind” racism. The claim that these symbols can be divorced from the material conditions of colonialism that gave them birth owes its existence to the idealist idea of equal discourse in the context of a European-dominated society, and this relies on faith in the idea of American “color blindness” or “post-racial society” to imagine equal opportunity discourse between racist ideas, when in reality, discourse in the United States is not equal for each race and will invariably produce unequal results. The idea that the game being played is absolutely fair is an idea that benefits the party that’s winning, but the winners and the losers in American society are not usually emphasized by discourse as long as the competition can simply be deemed to be fair. The attempts to address the issues that these symbols raise without getting into the question of racism, or through the lens of “color blindness,” are really just ways to avoid acknowledgment of the very real racial discrimination in American history as well as modern-day America. In practice, this amounts an intentional failure to acknowledge white supremacy, and must be viewed in objective aid of the perpetuation of white supremacy. If humanity is ever to create a world where such stereotypes and racist imagery don’t shape our reality, we must call out white supremacist imagery for what is truly is.

Sources

Anti-Defamation League. (n.d.). Hate on Display: A visual database of extremist symbols, logos and tattoos. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/racist_confederate_flag.asp

Churchill, W. (1999). From a Native son: selected essays on Indigenism, 1985-1995. (p. 450). South End Press.

MediaSmarts. (n.d.). Common Portrayals of Aboriginal people. Retrieved from http://mediasmarts.ca/diversity-media/aboriginal-people/common-portrayals-aboriginal-people

Israel injects Palestinian prisoners with dangerous viruses

21 Apr
Israeli troops arrest a Palestinian youth at the Shuafat refugee camp in al-Quds in February 2010.

Israeli troops arrest a Palestinian youth at the Shuafat refugee camp in al-Quds in February 2010.

The Israeli regime injects Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails with “dangerous viruses” before releasing them, a report says.

“A Palestinian released from Israeli jails, Rania Saqa, has brought to light that the Israeli regime injected detainees that are out of prisons with dangerous viruses,” Russian dailyKomsomolskaya Pravda wrote on Friday.

Saqa also said many of the prisoners are suffering from mysteriously incurable diseases such as bladder cancer and liver disorders.

She said it is a standard procedure for Israelis to inject Palestinian detainees before freeing them.

“Most former inmates die after being released from Israeli jails,” the newspaper wrote.

Palestinian prisoners are calling on international organizations to take urgent action to stop this.

A rights organization has accused Israel of using Palestinian prisoners to test new drugs.

The International Solidarity for Human Rights Institute said such conduct blatantly contradicts moral and medical principles.

According to human rights group B’Tselem, more than 4,700 Palestinian prisoners, including about 170 administrative detainees, are currently being held in Israeli prisons.

Administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.

GJH/MHB

Source

Terrorism and Privilege: Understanding the Power of Whiteness

20 Apr

white-privilege

by Tim Wise

As the nation weeps for the victims of the horrific bombing in Boston yesterday, one searches for lessons amid the carnage, and finds few. That violence is unacceptable stands out as one, sure. That hatred — for humanity, for life, or whatever else might have animated the bomber or bombers — is never the source of constructive human action seems like a reasonably close second.

But I dare say there is more; a much less obvious and far more uncomfortable lesson, which many are loathe to learn, but which an event such as this makes readily apparent, and which we must acknowledge, no matter how painful.

It is a lesson about race, about whiteness, and specifically, about white privilege.

I know you don’t want to hear it. But I don’t much care. So here goes.

White privilege is knowing that even if the Boston Marathon bomber turns out to be white, his or her identity will not result in white folks generally being singled out for suspicion by law enforcement, or the TSA, or the FBI.

White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for whites to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening, or threatened with deportation.

White privilege is knowing that if the bomber turns out to be white, he or she will be viewed as an exception to an otherwise non-white rule, an aberration, an anomaly, and that he or she will be able to join the ranks of pantheon of white people who engage in (or have plotted) politically motivated violence meant to terrorize — and specifically to kill — but whose actions result in the assumption of absolutelynothing about white people generally, or white Christians in particular.

Among these: Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph and Joe Stack and George Metesky and Byron De La Beckwith and Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton and Herman Frank Cash and Robert Chambliss and James von Brunn and Lawrence Michael Lombardi and Robert Mathews and David Lane and Chevie Kehoe and Michael F. Griffin and Paul Hill and John Salvi and Justin Carl Moose and Bruce and Joshua Turnidge and James Kopp and Luke Helder and James David Adkisson and Scott Roeder and Shelley Shannon and Dennis Mahon and Wade Michael Page and Jeffery Harbin and Byron Williams and Charles Ray Polk and Willie Ray Lampley and Cecilia Lampley and John Dare Baird and Joseph Martin Bailie and Ray Hamblin and Robert Edward Starr III and William James McCranie Jr. and John Pitner and Charles Barbee and Robert Berry and Jay Merrell and Brendon Blasz and Carl Jay Waskom Jr. and Shawn and Catherine Adams and Edward Taylor Jr. and Todd Vanbiber and William Robert Goehler and James Cleaver and Jack Dowell and Bradley Playford Glover and Ken Carter and Randy Graham and Bradford Metcalf and Chris Scott Gilliam and Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder and Buford Furrow and Benjamin Smith and Donald Rudolph and Kevin Ray Patterson and Charles Dennis Kiles and Donald Beauregard and Troy Diver and Mark Wayne McCool and Leo Felton and Erica Chase and Clayton Lee Wagner and Michael Edward Smith and David Burgert and Robert Barefoot Jr. and Sean Gillespie and Ivan Duane Braden and Kevin Harpham and William Krar and Judith Bruey and Edward Feltus and Raymond Kirk Dillard and Adam Lynn Cunningham and Bonnell Hughes and Randall Garrett Cole and James Ray McElroy and Michael Gorbey and Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman and Frederick Thomas and Paul Ross Evans and Matt Goldsby and Jimmy Simmons and Kathy Simmons and Kaye Wiggins and Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe and David McMenemy and Bobby Joe Rogers and Francis Grady and Cody Seth Crawford and Ralph Lang and Demetrius Van Crocker and Floyd Raymond Looker and Derek Mathew Shrout and Randolph Linn.

Ya know, just to name a few.

And white privilege is being able to know nothing about the crimes committed by most of the terrorists listed above — indeed, never to have so much as heard most of their names — let alone to make assumptions about the role that their racial or ethnic identity may have played in their crimes.

White privilege is knowing that if the Boston bomber turns out to be white, we  will not be asked to denounce him or her, so as to prove our own loyalties to the common national good. It is knowing that the next time a cop sees one of us standing on the sidewalk cheering on runners in a marathon, that cop will say exactly nothing to us as a result.

White privilege is knowing that if you are a white student from Nebraska — as opposed to, say, a student from Saudi Arabia — that no one, and I mean no one would think it important to detain and question you in the wake of a bombing such as the one at the Boston Marathon.

And white privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Belfast. And if he’s an Italian American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.

In short, white privilege is the thing that allows you (if you’re white) — and me — to view tragic events like this as merely horrific, and from the perspective of pure and innocent victims, rather than having to wonder, and to look over one’s shoulder, and to ask even if only in hushed tones, whether those we pass on the street might think that somehow we were involved.

It is the source of our unearned innocence and the cause of others’ unjustified oppression.

That is all. And it matters.

Source

Cop fired for using Trayvon Martin images in target practice

14 Apr
People along with New York City Council members attend a press conference to call for justice in the February 26 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on the steps of City Hall March 28, 2012 in New York City. (AFP Photo / Allison Joyce)

People along with New York City Council members attend a press conference to call for justice in the February 26 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on the steps of City Hall March 28, 2012 in New York City. (AFP Photo / Allison Joyce)

A Florida policeman has been fired for using photos of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, shot and killed last year by a neighborhood watchman, for target practice. Martin’s family attorney condemned the act as “depraved.”

Sgt. Ron King of the Florida’s Port Canaveral Police Department allegedly offered paper shooting targets emblazoned with Martin’s image to two other officers, an internal review revealed. He was dismissed on Friday for possessing a number of such shooting targets.

“Port Canaveral Police Department considers that behavior unacceptable,” John Walsh, CEO of the Port Canaveral Authority said. King reportedly acquired the paper targets online and brought them to a firearms training session.

Martin, 17, was gunned down by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in February 2012 in Sanford, about 50 miles northwest of Port Canaveral. Zimmerman claims that he shot the teenager in self-defense, and will stand trial for second-degree murder in June.

The Martin family says that Martin was unarmed when Zimmerman shot him, and had left his father’s house in the neighborhood to go to a convenience store.

“It is absolutely reprehensible that a high-ranking member of the Port Canaveral Police, sworn to protect and serve Floridians, would use the image of a dead child as target practice,” attorney Ben Crump said in a statement. “Such a deliberate and depraved indifference to this grieving family is unacceptable.”

In an unexpected move, Zimmerman waived his right to a ‘stand-your-ground’ in March of this year, relinquishing the opportunity to convince the judge pre-trial that he had acted in self-defense. Had he succeeded, his actions would have been deemed self-defense and the murder charges would have been dropped.

The stand-your-ground law allows Florida citizens to defend themselves with deadly force in public if they believe they are being threatened. Martin’s death sparked a wave of protest against the controversial law demanding that it be overturned. Under this legislation, Zimmerman initially managed to evade arrest.

Source

Paul Robeson Mural Restored, Rededicated on Activist’s 115th Birthday

9 Apr
(Students from Paul Robeson High School help to rededicate the Paul Robeson mural. Photo by Steve Weinik, provided.)

(Students from Paul Robeson High School help to rededicate the Paul Robeson mural. Photo by Steve Weinik, provided.)

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The Mural Arts Program today rededicated a mural of Paul Robeson on his 115th birthday, while students from Robeson High School in West Philadelphia celebrated a victory inspired by the civil rights leader.

At nearly four stories tall, the mural of Robeson faces west on Chestnut Street near 45th, just across the street from the high school that bears his name.

Born in 1898 in Princeton, NJ, the scholar, activist, athlete, and entertainer was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and died in seclusion in Philadelphia, at age 77.

“He had the nerve to try to get out and stop lynchings during the Truman administration,” notes Frances Aulston, who runs the Paul Robeson House at 50th and Chestnut Streets.   “He walked around the White House saying, ‘This isn’t supposed to happen,’ and tried to put a stop to it.”

“He fought against poll taxes that were common during that time, and worked hard to make sure people had the right to vote,” Aulston says.  “But because he had the courage and conviction to speak out, he was persecuted greatly in this country.”

“When we saw this mural starting to fade, we knew we had to fix it,” says Jane Golden, executive director of the Mural Arts Program. “Because he meant so much to the world, we knew his image shouldn’t fade. By redoing this mural, by preserving it, it lives on for another 20 years as a beacon of inspiration.”

“He’s always an individual that influences me in my life,” said Totiana Myers, a sophomore at Robeson High.

Last December, the Philadelphia School District recommended that the school be closed. Myers battled on the front lines, along with the rest of the school’s 200-plus students, and last month the SRC announced that Robeson would be spared.

“We fought hard and our fighting wasn’t in vain,” says Myers.

And, she notes, Robeson stands tall, looking down on West Philadelphia, almost as a guard, smiling down.

“I think this was the best birthday present we could have given him,” she says, looking up at the mural.

Source

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly “wanted to instill fear” in Black and Latino men

9 Apr
Demonstrators protest the NYPD's stop-and-frisk police outside of Manhattan federal court last month. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Demonstrators protest the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk police outside of Manhattan federal court last month. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

At stop-and-frisk trial, New York state senator and former police captain Eric Adams testifies about 2010 conversation with Kelly

by 

The commissioner of the New York City police department views the controversial practice of stop, question and frisk as a means to instil fear in young African American and Latino men, a New York state senator testified in a federal court on Monday.

State senator Eric Adams, who retired from the NYPD after rising to the rank of captain during a 22-year career, said commissioner Ray Kelly described his views on stop and frisk during a July 2010 meeting in the office of then-governor David Patterson.

Adams had traveled to Albany for a meeting on 10 July 2010 with the governor to give his support for a bill that would prohibit the NYPD from maintaining a database that would include the personal information of individuals stopped by the police but released without a charge or summons. In discussing the bill, which ultimately passed, Adams said he raised the issue of police stops disproportionately targeting young African American and Latino men.

“[Kelly] stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instil fear in them that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police,” Adams testified.

“How else would we get rid of guns,” Adams said Kelly asked him.

Adams told the court he was stunned by the commissioner’s claim and immediately expressed his concerns. “I was amazed,” Adams testified. “I told him that was illegal.”

According to Adams, also at the meeting were a former New York City council member, Hakeem Jeffries, who is now a US congressman, and another New York state senator, Martin J Golden. Adams said he was “shocked” the commissioner would describe an effort to instill fear among African American and Latino youth in the company of three elected African American politicians – referring to himself, Jeffries and Golden.

Adams’s testimony marked the latest in a series of explosive allegations leveled against the NYPD in an ongoing trial targeting the department’s stop-and-frisk practices. In earlier hearings, two serving NYPD officers testified that the department maintains a rigid quota system to ensure officers make a certain number of stops, arrests and summons. Both men secretly recorded roll-call meetings and conversations with supervisors which purport to show the existence of such a system.

Under the joint tenure of Kelly and mayor Michael Bloomberg, the NYPD has stopped and, in some cases searched, approximately 4.4 million people, most of them Latino or African American.

By law, police officers are empowered to stop individuals on the street if they have reasonable suspicion that an individual is preparing to, is in the process of, or has just committed a crime.

According to Adams, under these conditions, stop and frisk is a “great tool” for suppressing and responding to crime. He added, however, that “nowhere” in the law is an officer empowered to “use the tool to instil fear. Nowhere”.

Heidi Grossman, an attorney for the city, challenged Adams on the facts of his meeting with Kelly, noting the state senator had not provided notes on the conversation, despite a subpoena. Adams said his email inbox contained some 10,000 messages and that his search for notes concerning the meeting was ongoing.

“I don’t think anyone in their right mind would believe the police commissioner would say the police department is targeting, just for targeting, blacks and Hispanics,” Grossman said.

She added that commissioner Kelly has denied telling Adams that stop and frisk is intended to instil fear in minority populations.

David Floyd is the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit against the city of New York over its stop-and-frisk practices. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

David Floyd is the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit against the city of New York over its stop-and-frisk practices. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

In October 2011, Adams signed an affidavit in support of class action certification for the Floyd suit. Grossman confirmed that Adams met with attorneys filing the suit before he signed the affidavit and suggested it was drafted by the the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Adams said he was unaware of how the affidavit came into being and said it may have been drafted by one of his staffers. Grossman pointed out that the document uses the phrase “instil the belief”, with respect to Kelly’s comments to Adams, rather than “instil fear”.

The same month, Adams also described the meeting with Kelly to the Guardian. At the time, Adams said the commissioner told him the aim of the practice was to “instil in every young man from those communities [black and Hispanic] that any time they leave their house they can be searched by the police.”

Asked whether Adams’ October 2011 comments had given an accurate account of Kelly’s remarks NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told the Guardian at the time: “commissioner Kelly said he wants gunmen to be deterred from carrying weapons on them in the streets, particularly in those communities most victimised by gun violence.”

In court on Monday, Grossman attempted to read from an affidavit signed by Kelly in 2011 in which Kelly apparently rejected Adams’ claims, but judge Scheindlin shut the effort down, stating that the commissioner would not be able to provide testimony through “backdoor” means. “If he’d like to come here, he’s welcome in this courtroom,” Scheindlin said. “If he’s not going to be here we’re not going to have his statement.”

Kelly said in a statement later that he “categorically and totally” denied making the remarks attributed to him by Adams. “It’s interesting that apparently only Mr Adams heard this statement though other people were present. And, it just defies logic … it’s ludicrous.”

Adams’s Brooklyn district contains some of the most heavily policed areas in New York City, including Brownsville, which in 2011 reported the second highest number of stops in the city. The neighborhood also has some of the highest crime rates in the city. Adams told reporters outside court that young people simply trying to survive in his district frequently find themselves trying to avoid both crime and police harassment.

“They feel trapped,” Adams said. He described a meeting in his office approximately a year and a half ago when seven high school football players came in to describe police stops they had experienced.

“Two of them began to cry,” Adams said, adding that the boys told him about “police touching their privates.”

“Cops don’t want to do this,” he said. “Cops are so frustrated they are wearing wires to roll call.”

Adams said he is at times frustrated with his own ability to convey the seriousness of conditions in his district to residents in New York’s more affluent neighborhoods. “It pains me,” he said. “New Yorkers don’t really know how bad it is for young people.”

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