For his parents, there is only grief."
I am utterly undone: My struggle with black rage and fear after Ferguson - Salon.com
Saturday, November 29, 2014
I am utterly undone: My struggle with black rage and fear after Ferguson - Salon.com
"If I have to begin by convincing you that Black Lives Matter, we have all already lost, haven’t we? So let’s not begin there. Let’s begin at the end. At the end there is only Michael Brown Jr.’s dead body, no justice, and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
John Armwood - This is a white problem. White culture must face...
This is a white problem. White culture must face that this is a group culture problem. This does not mean that all whites are bad but the view of this as a few bad apples stretches credibility into fantasy land. This is a group culture problem. There must be both responsibility and accountability. JHA
"Police officers are so rarely held accountable for killing even unarmed black and brown people, that no one was really surprised at the outcome this time. People have lost faith in the system, which repeatedly tells them black lives don’t matter.
But even if the grand jury had indicted Darren Wilson for killing Mike Brown, even if the grand jury in Staten Island indicts Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner, it wouldn’t resolve the structural and institutional racism that underlies police violence against black people. Yes, more officers should be held accountable for killing unarmed young men, but it isn’t a few bad apples, it’s the way that police are trained to see communities of color as war zones and to behave like occupying forces. In his testimony, Wilson called the neighborhood a “hostile environment” and told the grand jury, “it is just not a very well-liked community.”
Black people are angry because of the way we're treated, the way the police, who are sworn to protect us and uphold the law, are so often above the law. What we are seeing in Ferguson is a pro-democracy protest like other pro-democracy protests we’ve cheered worldwide in recent years. The people are saying that justice ultimately cannot spring from the status quo, so it must be dismantled.As Martin Luther King said, "Riot is the language of the unheard."
John Armwood - This is a white problem. White culture must face...
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Fury After Ferguson - NYTimes.com
"And yet the reaction was also about more than Wilson and Brown. It was about faith in fundamental fairness. It was about whether a population of people with an already tenuous relationship with the justice system — a system not established to recognize them, a system used for generations to deny and subjugate them, a system still rife with imbalances toward them — would have their fragile and fraying faith in that system further shredded."
Fury After Ferguson - NYTimes.com
Fury After Ferguson - NYTimes.com
Monday, November 24, 2014
Bigger Than Immigration - NYTimes.com
"As usual, issue-oriented opposition overlaps with a historical undercurrent, one desperate for demonstration (of liberal folly) and preservation (of conservative principles and traditional power).
From this worldview, liberalism isn’t simply an alternate political sensibility, but a rot, an irreparable ruination, a violation of the laws of the land as the founding fathers (most of whom owned slaves at some point) envisioned, but also of the laws of nature, which they see as being directed by God. There are so many examples of this: opposition to L.G.B.T. rights, to the science undergirding climate change and efforts to arrest that change, and to allowing women a full range of reproductive options.
Maybe that’s why the president cited Scripture when laying out his immigration plan: “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too.”
But that is surely to have fallen on deaf ears, if not hostile ones. Conservatives slammed the usage, and Mike Huckabee went so far as to accuse the president of trying to rewrite the Bible while bizarrely invoking the Bill Cosby sexual assault allegations"
Saturday, November 22, 2014
"For the public has never embraced the official verdict, handed down by the Warren Commission in September 1964. After less than a year of hearings and deliberations, the team—led by Chief Justice Earl Warren—concluded that President Kennedy had been shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old ex-Marine portrayed by the Commission as a shiftless loner with communist sympathies. But they could not explain why.
The most obvious question about the murder was also the one that could not be answered. Not only had Oswald been murdered in police custody two days after the assassination, but the Commission had been unable to find a single person who remembered Oswald criticizing Kennedy. On the contrary, Oswald had frequently expressed his admiration for the president. The Commission interviewed at least six witnesses who remembered Oswald praising Kennedy.
Faced with a substantial hole in their case, the Commission tried to plug it by filling the report with airy speculation about Oswald’s tormented psyche. Oswald, they insisted, was someone who had been driven by “resentment of all authority,” “antagonism toward the United States” and an “urge to try to find a place in history.” Perhaps he had shot the president, the Report blandly suggested, because of his “inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people.”
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Sunday, November 16, 2014
When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 4 - NYTimes.com
"But we in white society should be equally ready to shoulder responsibility. In past articles in this series, I’ve looked at black/white economic inequality that is greater in America today than it was in apartheid South Africa, at ongoing discrimination against African-Americans in the labor market and at systematic bias in law enforcement. But these conversations run into a wall: the presumption on the part of so many well-meaning white Americans that racism is a historical artifact. They don’t appreciate the overwhelming evidence that centuries of racial subjugation still shape inequity in the 21st century.
Indeed, a wave of research over the last 20 years has documented the lingering effects of slavery in the United States and South America alike. For example, counties in America that had a higher proportion of slaves in 1860 are still more unequal today, according to a scholarly paper published in 2010. The authors called this a “persistent effect of slavery.”
Obama’s Immigration Plan Could Grant Papers to Millions, at Least for Now - NYTimes.com
"While the practical effect of the measures could therefore be broad, legally they will be limited, providing only temporary reprieves from deportation. Congress could change the laws that Mr. Obama will rely on for his actions, and a future president could cancel the program, leaving immigrants out in the open and even more exposed to removal."
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Friday, November 14, 2014
Obama To GOP After Elections: I'm Still The President
"WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's party may have taken a beating at the polls last week, but that hasn't stopped him from taking an aggressive series of actions to push his agenda forward.
Over the last week, Obama announced a historic deal on climate change, took a bold stance to protect an open Internet, and is expected to soon announce sweeping changes to the nation's immigration system. Some progressives are already taking notice."
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Finally the President the President did the right thing.
NYTimes: Obama Said to Plan Moves to Shield 5 Million Immigrants
"Asserting his authority as president to enforce the nation’s laws with discretion, Mr. Obama intends to order changes that will significantly refocus the activities of the government’s 12,000 immigration agents. One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away.
That part of Mr. Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration research organization in Washington. But the White House is also considering a stricter policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people."
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Sunday, November 09, 2014
Thursday, November 06, 2014
Wednesday, November 05, 2014
Monday, November 03, 2014
Blacks, Obama and the Election - NYTimes.com
"Others believe that there is also something else at play, implicitly or explicitly: race. Last week NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat locked in a tight re-election race, why President Obama has a hard time in her state. One of the reasons she gave was this: “I’ll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans.”
Sunday, November 02, 2014
Saturday, November 01, 2014
"Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb, according to a six-month-long, nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America. At the heart of this voter-roll scrub is the Interstate Crosscheck program, which has generated a master list of nearly 7 million names. Officials say that these names represent legions of fraudsters who are not only registered but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election — a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison."
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