America's hopeless "color line".

Take it away Chauncey DeVega:

"2015 was a whirlwind year, full of miserable happenings and scant hope for those of us who write about and study the color line in America.

 

The Republican Party finally surrendered to the nativism, racism and xenophobia that it nurtured among its base for decades. This toxic mix birthed the ascendance of the proto-fascist Know Nothing Donald Trump.

Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald and so many other black and brown people had their lives stolen from them by America’s out of control, hyper-violent, militarized, racist police.
The right-wing news/entertainment complex continued to weaponize its followers. Dylann Roof followed through on his programming and killed nine black Americans after they welcomed him into the fellowship of their church community. Robert Dear also heard the drumbeat of hatred and lies turned into truths by Fox News and Republican presidential candidates such as Carly Fiorina when he killed three people at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado.

The old combination of guns, racism and toxic white masculinity was lethal in 2015. There is no reason to believe that it will be sated in the years to come.

Bill Cosby, once “America’s Dad” and exemplar of “black respectability politics,” was revealed to be a likely sex predator/serial rapist.

President Barack Obama continued to face strident opposition from Republicans. America’s first black president is entering the twilight year of his two terms in office with the lesson now fully reinforced that “hope and change” was beaten back by old fashioned racial bigotry and white racial resentment. For too large a swath of white America, a black man who is president of the United States is illegitimate: his policies, however reasonable, are to be rejected as dead on arrival.
There is an ugly irony in how America’s first black president, the most powerful person in the world, is in many ways a 21^st century Dred Scott, the latter a man deemed by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 as having “no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”

For those of us who study race and politics during a time when white supremacy is resurgent, American empire is in decline, and the inhumanity of neoliberalism is accepted as the natural order of things, it is easy to surrender to racial battle fatigue. To resist this impulse, a person must develop mental and emotional armor. Ultimately, if the worst of human behavior is your object of study, it is easy to become cynical, to no longer be surprised.

Even by those low standards and expectations, the de facto street execution of a 12-year-old black child named Tamir Rice by an incompetent and emotionally unstable white Cleveland police officer, and his subsequent exoneration for such a foul and wicked act, shocked me.

However, the response by conservatives–in the news media, online forums and by at least one of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates–to the killing of Tamir Rice is potentially even more disturbing.

What should be a source of collective outrage and sadness has instead been transformed into an opportunity to lecture black people about “personal responsibility,” a lightning rod for virulent anti-black racism, a showcase for how white racial paranoic thinking always blames the black victim for his or her unjust killing by the State, as well as one more chances to make excuses for a broken American criminal justice system that enables police murder, abuse and violence against people of color, the poor, the mentally ill and other groups marked as the “disposable” Other.

For example, the comment sections at the website Cleveland.com (which is a news aggregator that also features content from the newspaper The Plain Dealer) were so infested with racism and hate speech against Tamir Rice that the site administrators deactivated them at the end of November.
Cleveland.com explained its decision as follows:

So why, a lot of you have asked, have we chosen to turn off all comments on stories about Tamir Rice?  

The simple answer is that we don’t fancy our website as a place of hate, and the Tamir Rice story has been a magnet for haters.  

We tried to maintain the conversation. The Tamir Rice case offers lessons for Greater Cleveland, and hashing out those lessons in an online community forum could be a healthy exercise. A lot of people firmly believe the police broke the law when they shot Tamir, but others feel just as strongly that the shooting was justified. Passions are strong, and because our comments section could provide a place for venting, we allowed comments on Tamir stories for months. We enlisted a small army on our staff to monitor the comments and delete any that violated our standards.  

The trouble was that we couldn’t keep up. Just about every piece we published about Tamir immediately became a cesspool of hateful, inflammatory or hostile comments. Rather than discuss the facts of the case, many commenters debased the conversation with racist invective. Or they made absurd statements about the clothing and appearance of people involved in the story. Or they attacked each other for having contrasting viewpoints. In many cases, well over half of the comments on Tamir stories broke our rules and had to be deleted.  

We ultimately decided that the comments sections of Tamir stories, overrun as they were by wickedness, were not contributing to the needed conversation. In early October, we reluctantly and finally decided to close down the comments on any news story about Tamir..." [More]

DeVega  goes on to talk about the rise of racism in America and the resurgence of white supremacy while the American empire continues to decline.

The state killing of Tamir Rice is just one example of many. Sadly, these types of incidents that continue to divide along racial lines have been the norm and not the exception since the election of Barack Obama.

I suppose we could blame the conservative media and their huge echo chamber, but I suspect that things would be this way if there was no FOX VIEWS and Drudge Reports. What is driving the America's racial divide is the fear in some quarters of the new America that is emerging and the thought that a person of color could actually lead it, again.

Like DeVega, I don't see the color lines in America getting any closer, and I certainly don't see anyone trying to bridge it.

Folks in the majority hate to hear about racism and racial issues because they believe in their hearts that racism no longer exists. And if they didn't, they would have the right-wing media to tell them that it really doesn't.

On the other hand, folks in the minority population see race relations getting worse,  and they believe in their hearts that white resentment and angst is only going to increase as the country becomes more diverse.

Of course we both can't be right.  Fortunately, though,  I think events in the coming years will show us all who is.

*Pic from huffingtonpost.com

 



  

 

Holiday cheer.

There were more weather related deaths over the weekend in the South than the amount of people killed in the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

That said, I have to wonder if right-wingnuts now still believe that it's a joke to think about climate change as a serious threat to the country.

Something else happened over the weekend that has me wondering why Rham Emanuel still has a job.

"Family members of two people killed by Chicago police during a weekend shooting joined activists Sunday to call for sweeping changes in the way officers interact with the city’s black residents.
“Police are supposed to serve us and protect us, and instead they kill us,” said Janet Cooksey, whose 19-year-old son, Quintonio LeGrier, was shot and killed early Saturday when police were called to his house for a domestic disturbance. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

Bettie Jones, 55, who lived downstairs from LeGrier, also was shot and killed. The officers were responding to a report of a man carrying a bat, and opened fire after LeGrier became combative, Chicago police said in a statement. Jones was shot by accident, authorities said.
The deaths were the first fatal police-involved shootings in Chicago since the release last month of a video showing the 2014 police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The video’s release led to a series of demonstrations in the city, including Christmas Eve protests on Michigan Avenue.  

City and church leaders responded to the latest shootings at a news conference and vigil Sunday. They criticized Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s response to police shootings and pushed for changes to the way officers treat residents and are trained to respond to volatile situations." [Source]

The good Mayor has been ignoring  his police department for years and he has failed to take steps to correct their behavior on prior occasions. Frankly, I am surprised that the people of Chicago allowed the problem to fester for this long.

And, with all due respect to Dr. Ben, race does play a role in these poor police decisions.

Finally, another incident over the holidays has me wondering how our Christian brothers and sisters can celebrate the spirit of Christmas by burning the house of worship of members of another  religion.

"A fire caused major damage at a Texas mosque on Friday afternoon, and authorities are calling it somewhat suspicious.

Firefighters shortly arrived on the scene, followed by arson investigators. There was major damage to the inside of the mosque and there were apparently multiple points of origin, suggesting it was arson and not an accident."

I am still waiting on some of the GOP front runners to condemn this act of hate. Because, let's be honest, if this was a Christian church (the exception being a black Christian church of course) burned by people who we suspect to be Muslims, the pontification and condemnation would be endless.

I hope you all will enjoy what's left of your holidays.


*Pic from wnem.com





  




 

Waiting on another video in Chicago.

   We all know the story of Laquan McDonald by now. He is the Chicago teen who lost his life in what seemed to be a callous and cold hearted way, to a person who was sworn to protect his community and not assassinate its sons.

His killing has sparked outrage in that city and in certain communities across the country, and now there are cries for the Mayor and police chief to step down. (One out of two is a start)

Sadly, this is nothing knew to the city, as there has been a sick culture of those in law enforcement abusing the power given to them for some time.

S0 you know about Laquan McDonald, but I bet you haven't heard about the case of  Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson. His mother is displaying true field Negro behavior and refusing to take the settlement offer from the city of  Chicago for her son's death.

"The mother of a man shot and killed by Chicago police last year said she has rejected the city’s proposed settlement and wants it to release dashcam footage of the slaying because it shows her son was unarmed when he was killed.

The mother of Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson, Dorothy Holmes, told reporters during a press conference Tuesday that she has declined a proposed settlement by the city of Chicago in her federal civil lawsuit over her son’s death. Holmes said she will not take hush money from a city that has been doling it out in the millions to cover-up questionable police shootings, like the $5 million paid to Laquan McDonald’s family this past summer.

'You can’t put a price on my son’s life,” Holmes said with a shaken voice.'

Her son was running through Washington Park on Oct. 12, 2014, on Chicago’s South Side when Officer George Hernandez shot him to death. Then, a familiar story was told to the press.

Johnson had a gun, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden told the media. (Camden is the same de facto cop spokesman who claimed McDonald “lunged” at police with a knife, causing them to open fire.) Hernandez was not in uniform and driving an unmarked car when he responded to a call of shots fired. Johnson became an automatic suspect because he was running. Camden said Johnson was carrying a gun when at one point he turned toward Hernandez, causing the officer to shoot.

Holmes and her attorney said they’ve seen the dashcam video and it shows police are lying.

'He’s running with palms up,' said William Calloway, an activist who speaks on behalf of Johnson’s family. 'The video’s not blurry. It’s not grainy. It is clear as day.'

'They killed him and he was unarmed,' he told The Daily Beast. 

Even worse, according to a stunning and volatile allegation by Holmes’s attorney, is that police framed Johnson after they killed him by planting a gun on his person.

'Her prerogative the whole time has been to get this officer arrested and indicted,” Calloway said of Holmes.'" [Source] 

For now these are just "allegations" of police misconduct and a cover -up; hopefully we will be able to see the video for ourselves  to determine if the "allegations" are true.  

*Pic from newsone.com











   

The Donald's America.

    I just watched  a video of yet another African American man being shot to death by someone who is supposed to be in a position of authority. This is becoming an all too familiar theme in our country. I bet you wouldn't have to tell the officer who executed Laquan McDonald that white lives matter.

Anyway, he is being charged with first degree murder, so it seems that we are making some progress, although it took over a year for us to be able to view the video tape. (TY Craig Futterman)

 This is the climate in which Donald Trump (and his handlers) have chosen to turn up his racist rhetoric and  let his minions loose on all those who disagree with him. So while some folks in the majority population continue to worry about Syrian refugees committing acts of terror, I will worry about the men and women who are sworn to protect us----- men and women who wear uniforms and bulletproof vests, catching a sudden case of "color arousal" at the wrong time.

Speaking of the aforementioned Mr. Trump, here is another cut and paste worthy article about his antics of late:

"We’re now on day two of the latest media controversy to engulf Donald Trump, namely his insistence that he personally saw footage that featured “thousands” of American Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. For a time, Dr. Ben Carson even backed up Trump’s delusion by claiming that he had also seen the footage, a claim that was subsequently retracted by his campaign. For two days now, the media has been parsing Trump’s claim, which he now supports with an unsourced paragraph in an old Washington Post article that describes “law enforcement authorities” questioning people who were “allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops.”

The controversy is obviously a big deal to the media, and even has some predicting that this could be the thing that finally puts a dent in Trump’s poll numbers. On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski predicted that this could really hurt Trump:

'This is what could really hurt Trump. I mean if — he’s got to be smart and strong and correct, and if he’s not correct, when push comes to shove people will coalesce around a different candidate.'

This is hilarious on so many levels, starting with the notion that being “correct” means anything to Republican voters, who lap up GOP candidates’ weird fantasies like kittens with a saucer of milk. In this case, though, the media is blinding itself to the fact that Trump’s claim has more then enough truthiness to give him the cover he needs.

That old WaPo report, it has to be said, is pure bullshit. The reporters who wrote it have since said that they were unable to verify the allegation, but no one has questioned them on where it came from in the first place. Based on the lack of attribution, the only possibilities are that it was from some law enforcement source who insisted on deep background attribution (not likely given the broad nature of the claim), or it was from residents and/or local political figures who claimed knowledge of the incidents.

 

In any case, in the weeks following the attacks, literally everyone I ran into in New Jersey had a story about how they had personally seen the FBI or the cops raid their local convenience store/gas station/other business that happened to be owned by brown people, and that they knew for a fact the people scooped up in the raid had been plotting against America. People were scared shitless, and talking out of their asses.

For some reason, though, none of the coverage of Trump’s remarks has included the footage that Trump was probably talking about, footage that every American either saw or heard about that day and was deeply traumatized by. While still reeling from the tragedy, Fox News viewers got to see this footage of Palestinians allegedly celebrating the attacks:

Appearing when it did, this footage gave many Americans a distorted view of Muslim reaction to the attacks, which was, in fact, widespread condemnation. It is perhaps out of concern for this sort of distorted impression that media outlets are now reluctant to replay that footage, but it bears direct relevance to the political price Trump will pay for his current campaign of lies. To the Americans who matter to Trump, the resentful Republican base and low-information independents, Trump’s conflation of this footage with that unsourced WaPo report will be seen as a forgivable transgression at worst, and at best, something that feels true.

What I find even more bizarre about this current controversy is the immense gulf between coverage of Trump’s bogus 9/11 memories and the balls-out anti-black racism he displayed almost simultaneously. There may or may not have been people celebrating the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11, but the racist tweet Trump sent out this weekend was definitively a lie, definitively racist, and yet became a one-day footnote to the 9/11 story.

 

Some have correctly expressed concern that Trump’s 9/11 story could lead to violence against Muslims, but his supporters’ anti-black sentiments have already led to violence against at least one black man. Tweeting that black people are doing all of the murdering would seem to be at least as problematic, and orders of magnitude more racist, yet it has been treated as a sideline. Only Bill O’Reilly has managed to press Trump about it, and even then, it was only to warn him that it might give people an excuse to falsely believe that racism is even a thing.

To her credit, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow became one of the very few media figures who has even been willing to use the word “racist” to describe Trump’s tweet on Monday night’s show, but even that was a small part of an 18-minute segment on the 9/11 story. The rest of the media is apparently allergic to calling Trump’s tweet “racist” and a “lie” in equal measure, instead often referring to the completely fabricated statistics from a made-up source “questionable.” No, people, “slugging percentage” and “QB rating” are questionable statistics, these are lies.

As outrageous as Trump’s lies are, I find the media’s treatment of them even more of an outrage, because Trump has no duty to serve the public. Apparently, the media doesn’t think it does, either, or at least not that segment of the public." [Article]


*Pic from chicagotribune.com taken by Zbigniew Bzdak