Drinking coffee while black, and the Democrats have a debate.

I, like most working professionals, will sometimes hit up Starbucks or my local coffee shop in the mornings before I get my work on.

Sometimes there is nothing like a little jolt of java to get your juices flowing.

This is, of course, unless you happen to be a black man in America.

Tonight my racism chase takes me to Cincinnati, Ohio.   

"It was just another morning in Cincinnati, Ohio for 29-year-old Charles Harrell when he was making his way back from a early morning coffee run. Filming his trip, Harrell recorded his interaction with police officer Baron Osterman, who can be seen trailing behind Harrell on a bicycle. Sharing that the police office asked if he “had a problem,” Harrell noted that this was a normal occurrence in his hometown.

 

“This is what we have to go through in Cincinnati, harassment” he said. “You can’t be a black man and enjoy your morning, because the police are going to harass you in Cincinnati, Ohio.”

 

As the video continues to roll, Osterman approaches Harrell for allegedly crossing against the light. In response, Harrell admits that he was frightened by the officer’s trailing of him, stating, “You were scaring me, sir. I don’t know why you’re following me anyway. You followed me all the way down the street.” Osterman then demands that Harrell put his phone and coffee on the ground. Refusing to lay his objects down, Harrell instead offers his I.D., and the officer become physical, warning him: “Don’t reach around.” Harrell is pinned against the wall and handcuffed.

 

According to Cincinnati.com, this is not the first time Officer Osterman has been linked to the use of excessive force. He reportedly was involved in the death of a black man, Nathaniel Jones, in 2003 in a local White Castle restaurant. The Citizen Complaint Authority ruled that Osterman and his fellow officer James Pike used excessive force in subduing Jones in 2004. They were both cleared in 2008 and awarded financial compensation.

 

Harrell was arrested for a pedestrian violation, resisting arrest and possession of a small amount of marijuana. The police department released a statement saying that the incident was up for internal review. Watch the footage of the incident below: [Video and story]

 

I hope, for his sake, Charles had decaf.  

 

Finally, I am watching the democrats debate each other, and Bernie is doing his usual shouting about Wall Street, and Hillary is trying her best to tell the people what they want to hear by wrapping herself around his Oness.

 

The moderators are having a much easier job with this one, because there are only two people and they are both, for the most part, sticking to the issues. No my d**k is bigger than yours shouting match going on with these two.

 

Bernie is telling Hillary to release her transcript of her speeches on Wall Street and I believe that she should. She has to stop hiding behind this argument that she will do it when ALL of her opponents to the same. That argument just has disingenuous written all over it.  And worse, it is giving Donald trump and the New York Times cover for their disgraceful refusal to release the transcript of his "off the record"  conversation with the Time's editorial board where he allegedly told them that his entire campaign when it comes to immigration might be a scam. 

 

Sorry Joe Concha, I get the whole confidentiality thing, but this man is running to be the president of the United States for crying out loud. Nothing a presidential candidate thinks or have said in the past should be kept from the American people. 

 

This election is way too important to allow a scam artist to pull the wool over our eyes.

 

Oh wait....too late.

 

*Pic from rawstory.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two shootings, two different results.

The first incident happened in San Diego, California a little over a year ago.

"SAN DIEGO - A possibly suicidal man waving what appeared to be a gun was wounded Wednesday in an officer-involved shooting near De Anza Cove, authorities reported.

San Diego police got a report that an armed man was making threats and comments about killing himself in the 2800 block of North Mission Bay Drive in Mission Beach shortly after 11 a.m., SDPD public-affairs Lt. Kevin Mayer said.

Officers tried in vain to persuade the man to drop the weapon and surrender.

The photographer who captured video of the man waving the gun spoke with 10News about being in the line of fire.

"I knew he was going to do something," said local photographer Ed Baier.

Baier was one of the first on the scene and one of the only ones to capture every minute of what would turn out to be a standoff that would last for more than an hour.

He was in the middle, less than 100 yards away as the man already negotiating with officers in the park headed back to his car and re-emerged." [Source]

Goof job by the police. They took inventory of the situation and used appropriate force to neutralize the perp.

The second incident took place almost a year ago in Cleveland, Ohio.

"Cleveland police have released a video showing the moment that officers shot a 12-year-old boy in a park on Sunday. Tamir Rice can be seen playing in the snow with a pellet gun before sitting at a bench for three minutes. As the police drive up he can be seen standing up and moving the gun at his waist. Two officers get out with their guns drawn and the boy falls, disappearing behind the car. Rice died of his wounds the following day." [Source]

Besides the obvious things that the two incidents have in common, one glaring thing separates the two. If you said the race of the victims move to the head of the class.  

One victim, predictably, ended up dead. The other, in spite of trying to kill himself, did not.

Now we are learning that the police officers who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice acted "reasonably".

I would ask you to look at the case again and tell me if you agree.

"Like lightning … you see the lightning first, then the thunder. So I saw him go down immediately and then I heard the click the crack of the shot and then that was it," said Baier.
Medics took the suspect to a trauma center. Police say he is serious but stable condition. The officer who shot the man is a nine-year veteran of the force."

At least this man's family will see him again. The family of Tamir Rice is not so lucky.

Pic from thegrio.com

When stealing a car is no big deal but "reckless eyeballing" is.

   Shout out to one of my regular field Hands, Lilacpr, for bringing my attention to one of the following stories.

Anyway, just to show you how white privilege works I am going to cut and paste a couple of stories for you.


"A woman in Los Angeles, allegedly under the influence of drugs, reportedly stole a car and led police on a wild chase before coming to a stop, jumping out of the vehicle and dancing awkwardly to Future’s latest single.

Initially, when I saw the video, I gave it my “White-people-are-a-trip” chuckle. But the more I watched it, the less funny it became.

After a couple of minutes, I was more resentful than amused.

While Black women need police escorts for laughing too loudly on trains, White women can lead police all over the place before jumping out to do a jig in the middle of the street. I kept thinking what would have happened if her skin had been a little bit darker.

Her White skin gave her the benefit of presumed innocence even though she had stolen a car and was lifting and tugging on her shirt as she exited it. She could have had anything under those layers of t-shirts.

Sandra Bland’s cigarette was a problem.

Sandra Bland was called defiant and arrogant but this White woman taunted the police with dance moves and it was funny. And more importantly, as far as I know, she’s still alive today."

Watch here to see what the writer is talking about.

And then of course there is the flip side to this story. You know....the black side.

"John Felton was driving to his brother’s house in Dayton, Ohio, on a recent night when he noticed a police car tailing him. Not wanting to give the officer any excuse to pull him over, Felton, who is black and was visiting Dayton from Michigan, tried to drive extra carefully. But the effort was insufficient: Soon after making a turn, Felton was forced to stop his car and show the officer his driver’s license.

It turned out Felton had not switched on his turn signal at the exact right moment; as you can see from the video Felton made of the encounter and sent to talk show host David Pakman, the white officer told him he had failed to signal within 100 feet of making his turn.

 

But why, Felton wanted to know, had the officer decided to follow him in the first place? That’s when the stop went from being an ordinary illustration of racial profiling to an extraordinary one.

"You made direct eye contact with me and held onto it when I was passing you," the officer told Fenton.[sic] The implication was that Fenton [sic] had marked himself as a suspicious character simply by looking at the officer." [Source]

Now I have to tell you as an officer of the court who is somewhat versed in the law, it is not illegal to make eye contact with a police officer.  In fact, quite often if you don't make eye contact you will give the police officer an excuse to say that you are behaving in a suspicious manner.

But we get it. If you want to stay alive in certain parts of the country, it might be a good idea not to "eyeball" those in authority. In case you didn't know "reckless eyeballing" has been a thing since the days of slavery. It's what got Emmett Till --and countless others---- killed back in the day.   

Anyway.....

"Update, Aug. 28, 5:10 p.m.: The city of Dayton put out a statement about the incident, acknowledging that "making direct eye contact with an officer is not a basis for a traffic stop.” The statement implies—but doesn’t say outright—that in pulling Felton over for not signaling within 100 feet of a turn, the officer was complying with a Dayton police initiative called "Safe Communities Through Aggressive Traffic Enforcement,” aimed at reducing traffic-related fatalities. The statement also says that the police department "is in contact with Mr. Felton,” and that he "has agreed to a conversation with the officer, facilitated by the Dayton Mediation Center” that will "allow Mr. Felton and the Officer to discuss the specifics of the incident.”

I would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Although I am sure that it won't be very long. Unless, of course, Mr. Felton doesn't look the officer in the eye.

*Pic from madamenoire.com





 

Those buses again.

I was prepared to rip the people of Beavercreek, Ohio tonight , but I am not going to do that. I am going to leave these wonderful apple pie eating Americans living in their Rockwellian paradise, alone.

I know that they want to keep you Negroes out, and honestly, given your behavior of late, I am not sure that I can blame them. You Negroes better thank your lucky stars for the federal government, because without it you would be some walking fools.

 "Oh Field stop it, you can have violence and bad neighbors no matter where you live. Look at what happened in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.  I bet they didn't see that coming."

Yes, but you can never be too careful.

Anyway, these folks from Beavercreek don't want to put some bus stops in their neighborhood because they just don't want another Trayvon type situation on their hands.

"A lily-white Ohio suburb is doing everything it can, including risking millions in federal highway funding, to keep mostly minority bus-riders from a nearby city from entering their community. The showdown began in 2010 when the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority proposed adding three new bus stops in Beavercreek, a largely white suburb 15 minutes east of Dayton.

These new stops would give Dayton bus-riders access to Beavercreek’s major shopping mall and nearby businesses, as well as a medical clinic and Wright State University.

Facing the prospect of buses coming in from Dayton, the Beavercreek City Council began enacting as many hurdles as they could to stop the new bus stops. Among the dozen roadblocks included mandating that bus shelters included heated and air conditioning as well as high-tech surveillance cameras, features that would be hugely expensive and are not common at other stops. Unsurprisingly, these demands couldn’t be met and the council rejected the expansion. “We turned downed an application because they didn’t meet our (design) criteria,” Beavercreek City Councilman Scott Hadley explained to Eye On Ohio.

Many in the area argue that their opposition boils down to a simple reason: race. According to the 2010 census, 9 in 10 Beavercreek residents are white, but 73 percent of those who ride the Dayton RTA buses are minorities. [Source]

Hey, at least you Negroes can sit anywhere you want to on the bus now, you just can't stop anywhere you want.

How would you like to be one of my Gay brothers and sisters? Just like you had to do back in the day, they are now finding themselves having to go to the back of the bus. (I bet poor Rosa Parks didn't see this one coming.)

"We're out there aggressively making sure this never happens again because this does not belong in Albuquerque, New Mexico," Berry told KOB-TV. "This does not reflect Albuquerque, New Mexico, and as the mayor I'm upset about it, and we want to make sure we get to the bottom of it."

Good for Albuquerque, now if we could get the people of Beavercreek, Ohio and like minded individuals to think like that we just might make it to the 21st Century.

  



 

 

Passion on the right but none on the left.

*
Before I start this post, I would like to take a moment to think about the thousands of children who have died in Somalia due to the turmoil that has rocked that region.............................

Let's keep those poor children in our thoughts.

Now unfortunately, here in A-merry-ca, gun violence has once again caused unspeakable horror to hit a small community:

"COPLEY, Ohio — A man apparently angry with his girlfriend gunned down two people outside an Ohio home and two more in a car Sunday morning, then shot the girlfriend in a rampage that left eight dead including the gunman, who was shot by police, authorities and witnesses said.

Two others were wounded, police said. A child was among those shot, witnesses said, though police wouldn’t confirm that. Investigators were trying to piece together what happened at four crime scenes, Copley police Chief Michael Mier said.

A neighbor, Gilbert Elie, said he was getting ready for church when he heard gunshots and cries for help in his northeast Ohio neighborhood, a wooded, residential area outside Akron. He went to a house across the street and said he found a shocking scene: the woman who lived there lying in the driveway, her husband shot near the garage, and their young granddaughter and another woman sho t in the front seat of a vehicle, the windows apparently blown out by gunfire.

A third woman came out of the house next door and tried to talk to Elie, he said, but their brief exchange ended abruptly when a man followed her out of the house and shot her, sending the 75-year-old Elie running for safety behind a truck.

“She was talking to me, and he come up behind her and shot her, so I figured, maybe I’m next,” he told The Associated Press.
He hid until he could see the gunman was gone, then returned home. Police arrived, and Elie said he heard a second round of shots coming from behind the houses and assumed officers had killed the gunman." [Story]

It seems that I do one of these stories at least once a month. I am sure that I will be doing another one again really soon.

Finally, over at The Root, someone wants to know if the left has lost its passion:

"...The Tea Party's remarkable victory reminds us that a radical splinter group can seize control of the issues and impose its will by threatening to wreck the system if it does not get its way.

That is a lesson that the left used to know back in the days of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements but seems to have forgotten since the presidential election of Barack Obama. The old distinction once drawn between mass social movements and political campaigns was lost in the emotional fervor aroused by the triumph of the first African-American president.

A lot of us acted as though Obama's election was an end in itself, rather than a means to accomplishing the change that his candidacy promised. But the election was never really about just getting Obama elected. It was about our ability to compel the new president and the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to respond to our needs and our demands.

To do that, we still needed a movement, separate and apart from the president's political apparatus, that could support him when he did the right thing and pressure him when he didn't. As evangelical activist Jim Wallis recently wrote, "it was the robust activism of those independent progressive movements of the past that created the space for major reforms and made other presidencies memorable. That's because social change does not ultimately rest on who is in the White House, but a movement outside of Washington, D.C., that makes fundamental reforms possible." [Full article]

Yes, a movement "outside of Washington", indeed. But where will it come from?
Starting a movement these days requires money. The tea party clowns had lots of it. They were bought and paid for by wealthy folks who bankrolled all types of front groups. Their passion was manufactured and it was made easier to do so because of the color arousal (thanks for that word, Francis) that gripped most of the folks who rode with them. (See those people* in the picture? Most of them probably lost their jobs under George Bush.)

There is no passion on the left because the propagandist on the right have done a damn good job of selling their snake oil to you A-merry-cans. "We are all in this together. We are A-merry-cans first, and we will not let those lefties take us down a path to Socialism."Yeah right. Even the so called progressives in this country still align themselves with one politrickster or another. But it's the same old run around. It just feel a little better because the guy screwing you happened to buy you a drink, first.   

But this could all change soon. As the wealth gap widens and folks start to see that they have been played, maybe the passion will come back. Politricksters in both political parties care about only one thing: staying in power. And they will do whatever it takes to keep going back to Washington. Hopefully a time will come in this country when the rest of us will start doing everything in our powers to make sure that they don't. Or, better yet, even if they do get to Washington; what they do when they get there wont even matter.

John and Rick deserve each other.

You have got to love wingnut politicians. I will start with my man John Kasich, the governor of the Buckeye state. (h/t to Keith Olbermann for turning me on to this story)

It seems that my man has him a very white and very male (as in zero blacks and four females-- out of 20 people) cabinet as he takes over that wonderful diverse Midwestern state. Apparently it is the first white out since 1962. Oh my!

Anywhoo, no harm no foul, it is, after all, his cabinet. He can choose who he wants to work for him. He says he is unfazed and he doesn't see color. He only wants the best people for the job.

The new governor claims to be unfazed by this. He says he did not intend to appoint an all-white group -- and there is absolutely nothing in his background to suggest otherwise. Kasich tells Plain Dealer Columbus Bureau Chief Reginald Fields that he simply set out to find "the best possible team I can get, and hopefully we will be in a position that we are fully diverse as we go forward."

Given Ohio's many problems, Kasich says, it was far more important to make the right hires out of the gate than "to find somebody to fit this metric." [Source]

Ok Gov. fair point. (And look, I am not even going to rip you for mixing up St. Patty's day and MLK Day. They are only a couple of months apart, and King might even be an Irish name. Who knows? Anybody can make a mistake.) But why did you slip a couple of black folks in for the photo op. of your swearing in? If you are color blind you are color blind. Why throw in some pepper with the salt for appearances only?

Gov. if what Olbermann is alleging is true, it smashed whatever little credibility you had on the race front. Not that you cared. But hey, I just thought you should know. I sure hope my cousins in Ohio are taking note.

Finally, you have got to love Rick (I belong in a ) Sanitarium. My man is running for President so he is stepping up the attacks on his O ness.

"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person -- human life is not a person, then -- I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'we're going to decide who are people and who are not people." [Source]

HUH? Rick, I am guessing that Barack Obama is praying that you win the republi-clown primary and run against him in 2012.

Before I forget, shout out to the MMTC folks for putting on a wonderful conference here in DC. I had to mingle with half of Rev. Inc. earlier, and there are just too many lawyers in the house for my taste. But, other than that, it's a first class event. I just wish I knew all the technical stuff that everybody is throwing around. But hey, it will come to me.

A hanging chad might not be so bad after all.

I have said it on this blog before, but let me repeat it: I am not a big conspiracy guy. I think that man did land on the moon, I think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and I don't think that the government created the AIDS virus to kill black people and Gays.....well, I take that back, I am not too sure about that one.

But having said that, this story has me troubled. I first caught a glimpse of it on CNN tonight, where some old guy from West Virginia (who if you just looked at him, you wouldn't believe he would vote for the O man in a million years)tried to push the button on an ES&S touch screen voting machine (more on them in a minute) for Obama. Apparently, the poor old guy kept pushing the Obama button on the touch screen, but the machine kept registering, McCain. This is not some conspiracy buzz, I actually saw it happening live on my television, and the story is all over the Internet. Of course the republican county commissioner swears that there is nothing wrong with the machines,and the old guy just happened to get a bum machine. To CNN's credit, the followed up on the story, but the company said that this machine might just not have been calibrated properly. Hmmmm, not calibrated properly. And just what does that mean? And who is doing the calibrating? (Can one of you computer savvy field Negroes help me out with that one please?)

This whole ES&S touch screen thing got me to wondering: How many of these machines are in use? And what states are using them? "When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again. The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican.."

Okay, now is the time to cue in the Twilight Zone music. I must confess that I have heard some folks obsessing over these shaky voting machines (which are always controlled by some company with a connection to republicans) before, but I never paid much attention to them. I viewed the folks who were always complaining about them, kind of like I always viewed the folks who believe in UFOs. I hear them but I really don't listen to them if you get my drift. Now....I am not so sure. The more I read about these Es&S folks, the scarier the shit gets.

Hell, I am even learning that they used them in Ohio for crying out loud. Be afraid Obamaholics, be very afraid. Where there is a will (and a republican with money) there is a way. So don't go counting your fried chickens just yet.

And you gotta give the rethugs credit. All I have heard about is ACORN and their shaky voter registration drives. Nothing about ES&S and their shaky touch screen voting machines. Distract. Distract. Distract.

Folks, could we be far away from a time in this country, when the best man you can have on your political team is a good computer programmer, or hacker? I dare say that we might be there already. Obamaholics, you better pray that isn't the case.

Okay Rod Sterling, you can get out of my head now.