I don’t know when this happened or where, but how it happened shows the reason why thousands of a people around world are protesting police brutality against black people.
The video shows a black man sitting in his car where he recorded the interaction with the police. He is then forced out of his car and can be heard telling the cop to get off his neck.
The video was uploaded, so it’s my assumption that he survived his interaction with the police officers.
If their president can be a racist in the Whitehouse, why can’t they be racist in Pennsylvania? This particular racist was so angry that ‘Black Lives Matter’ protesters want to live freely in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that she just couldn’t suppress her racism.
“This skin turns people off,” said Winfred Rembert, the celebrated African American artist based in New Haven.
“I don’t know why. Out of all the skins in the world when it comes to black skin, people are turned off, and they’ll do things to black skin that they wouldn’t do to any other skin.
“Why is that? Why is it so easy to pull the trigger on a black man? Why is it so easy to tase a black man when he hasn’t done a damn thing? Why is it so easy to do that? Why is it so easy to slap his face and knock him to the ground and mistreat him just because his skin is black? Not just in the streets. I mean in corporate America. It’s the same thing.”
I’m not sure why he felt the need to protest, as if anyone is saying that all lives do not matter. It is a common misconception for some when they see the Black Lives Matter signs.
AGIAN, no one is saying that all lives do not matter, but when black people are disproportionately killed at the hands of those supposedly protecting us, then the obvious conclusion is to wonder if these people believe that all lives do matter, and if they consider black lives a part of that slogan.
A worker at the store tried to explain the sign to the man, later identified as Abraham Knofler.
“I don’t understand why this is so offensive to you, to see something saying that ‘Black Lives Matter,'” the store’s employee tried to explain to Knofler. “It’s not saying that all lives don’t matter, it’s just saying that Black lives matter because they haven’t mattered in this country ever.”
In any event, Abraham “Avrumy” Knofler woke up this morning and apparently decided that protesting against the Black Lives Matter sign in the window of a Brooklyn coffee-shop was a good way to spend his morning. Some didn’t agree with his decision.
This goes without saying, but a quick scan of Abraham’s social media sites show that he is an avid Trump supporter, but I think we already knew that.
Larry Kudlow is only relevant these days because he is Trump’s National Economic Director. If not for that dubious claim to fame, Kudlow would be on Fox News spewing his usual nonsense to the Fox audience, and they would love it! This type of garbage is right up Fox’s alley.
But as the man who has the ear of the president, it’s frightening when Kudlow says he cannot understand the concept of systemic racism because white people vote for Obama. It’s like saying you’re not racist ’cause your sister’s boyfriend knows someone who is black.
“President Obama, the first black president, was elected twice, and he got 79 million white votes,” he said. “Therefore, I find it hard to understand something called systemic racism.”
LARRY KUDLOW: "Here’s a thought: President Obama, the first black president, was elected twice, and he got 79 million white votes. 79 million in two elections. Now therefore I find it hard to understand something called ’systemic racism.’"pic.twitter.com/LGhC3BLH7d
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) June 15, 2020
A 19-year-old Florida protester was found dead over the weekend — after vanishing the same day she tweeted about being sexually assaulted, police said Monday, NY Post reports.
The body of Oluwatoyin Salau, who took part in Black Lives Matter protests in Tallahassee, was discovered late Saturday as officers investigated a missing person case, Tallahassee police said.
A second woman, Victoria Sims, 75, who had also been reported missing, was found dead nearby.
Aaron Glee Jr., 49, has been arrested in connection with the slayings, but police did not elaborate on any alleged relationship between him and the women.
“There is no further information to release at this time,” Tallahassee police said in a statement.
Is this the it’s-about-time-moment? I am working as best I can to make it happen, but it will take sustained effort and pressure on all parts of our society–the economic, political and social systems–to ensure that real, meaningful, practical, and positive change sticks, and becomes the future of this country.
I find it truly amazing that the Black Lives Matter movement went from being associated with the fringe to being the vanguard of the latest move to once again (!) try and convince society that black people have been treated unjustly and have been killed for no good reason, or for no reason at all.
So far, this call seems to be sticking. Protests include faces of all hues, ages, and economic realities, and have continued unabated for almost three weeks. Cities and towns are being forced to recognize that they are supporting systemic racism with their actions, and to account for them. Corporations and sports leagues are, at least for now, professing their shortcomings and are promising to do better.
We have seen this before, but public support seems to truly be behind the movement.
But if we are to make real change to American society, it must begin with education. Education is families. Education is economics. Education is morality. Education is our best defense against those who believe that violence and more guns will solve our problems. And, of course, education is our best chance at bringing political change to this country.
Just as systemic racism has always existed and was uncovered again by the killing of George Floyd, the monstrous inequities in education were also uncovered by the Covid-19 lock-downs and the move to virtual schooling. As always, black students and their parents were the losers. Many schools shut down their school years in March and April, while others maintained educational programs until June.
You did not have to be a researcher, however, to see that students living in less affluent areas of the country could not get an education, which is their right, because of a lack of Internet access, computer hardware, or physical spaces in which they could study. Add the fact that black workers are more likely to physically go to their workplace during the pandemic, thus, leaving children in a situation that did not readily support learning, and you have the double tragedy that demonstrates the ongoing systemic racism in this country.
And then there’s the issue of policing.
It is true that the majority of police officers are good, and true, and committed, and hate bad colleagues. The problem is not what police officers do to earn our respect, like giving their lives in tragedies such as September 11 or Oklahoma City, or during natural disasters. The problem is why. Why do they do these heoric deeds then turn around and tell us that it was “Guiliani time,” or firing 41 shots into someone in an apartment house vestibule armed with nothing more than a wallet, or shooting a black man in the back while they were running away from the officer. And on and on.
Let me make myself crystal clear: I support a policing department when they do their jobs, support community programs, and, like umpires, are barely visible when they are making sure that citizens follow the law. But I also support the Black Lives Matter movement because too many black people have been killed, maimed, stopped and frisked, and otherwise harassed in numbers and manners that white people are not. We can all do both. In fact, it’s essential that we all do both because this is not a matter of a few isolated bad ones, it’s a culture that must be changed, an attitude that must be eliminated, a racism that must be uprooted.
That’s why we have calls to focus on education, community programs, drug treatment and rehabilitation. If we as a society can help people before they turn, or are forced to turn to crime, then we will have turned a wide corner towards a more civil society.
And it will take money. The problem, as it’s accumulated since the 1980s, is that public agencies and institutions have been made by deliberate political design, to compete against each other for the ever-more-scarce public dollar. Tax cuts that slathered money on the already-affluent while middle and working class incomes remain stagnated, worsened the problem. This must stop. We need a massive redistribution of how we spend public money in this country. On the revenue side, taxes on the wealthy must go up, and the unconscionable blasphemy that is the carried interest rule for hedge funds must be repealed. We have for too long acquiesced in the fiction that corporations or wealthy people can’t be taxed because they will leave their state or move to another country.
Go.
If you are so craven that the prospect of fully funding public institutions to the extent that they can fully meet their mandates and improve our society is prompting you to move, then go. And if you are a corporation that continues to use the tax system to pay no income taxes, then those laws need to be changed too.
Capitalism has its advantages. Rapacious capitalism, while as American as racism, must go. We need to spend money where it will effect the most public good. Not in military hardware for police or walls that shrink our country, or ever more jails to house people who could have a different life if they’d had a chance when they were younger. It’s time that we all thought more about the common good.
As for politics, I know that many black citizens are not thrilled by the choices we have for president, and that Joe Biden’s supported for the 1994 Crime Bill is especially odious. We know, though, what will happen if the president is reelected with a GOP majority in the Senate. More conservative judges and more support for a militarized police force. More racist voices and a backlash against any gains that will have occurred between now and next January. For me, the choice is clear. I hope it will be for you.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
When the world watched the murder of George Floyd on their television a few weeks ago, Americans and the rest of the world took to the streets to protest what they saw. But not all were upset with the killing, some people were fine with it and these people, as it turns out, just happens to be Trump supporters.
During a recent protest, some white men in New Jersey chose to celebrate Floyd’s killing by re-enacting the horrific event. According to local news, one of the men – a FedEx employee – was fired for his part in the re-enactment. The other, a State worker, is currently suspended.
As peaceful protesters gathered to demonstrate their constitutional right to demand justice for the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump and his administration issued the order to clear these protesters from Lafayette Square Park to allow Trump to walk, unimpeded, for a photo-op at a church. Flanked on his right and left as he made his way through the park were members of his administration and military personal.
Needless to say, this move to deny people their constitutional right to protest garnered much criticism nationwide.
One of the men following Trump to the church was Trump’s top military adviser and US Army General, Mark Milley. Milley has now denounced Trump and his photo-op and has apologized for his part in the event.
“I should not have been there,” Milley said in remarks to a National Defense University commencement ceremony.
Milley’s public expression of regret comes as Pentagon leaders’ relations with the White House are still tense after a disagreement last week over Trump’s threat to use federal troops to quell civil unrest triggered by the death of George Floyd.
After protesters were cleared from the Lafayette Square area, Trump led an entourage that included Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where he held up a Bible for photographers and then returned to the White House.
USA Today reports that the man who drove his pick-up truck into a crowd of peaceful protesters in Richmond, Virginia over the weekend is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan, according to prosecutors.
Henrico County Police identified the man as 36-year-old Harry H. Rogers of Virginia. Rogers has been charged with assault, battery, attempted malicious wounding and felony vandalism in the Sunday night incident.
Henrico Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor said in a tweet that a “cursory glance” at Rogers’ social media and his own admissions to authorities revealed that he was a leader of the white supremacist group.
Harry Rogers appeared in Henrico Court Monday morning where he agreed to receive a court-appointed attorney, according to CBS 6 News. A Henrico judge denied Rogers’ bond during Monday’s hearing.
Sometimes these police officers act as if their job is more important than the lives of the citizenry they’re supposed to protect. Look at what just happened in Buffalo.
A 75-year-old man took to the street in support of the nationwide George Floyd protests. He stood in front of a group of approaching Buffalo police officers and without provocation, was pushed to the ground splitting his head open.
Buffalo’s Mayor Byron Brown said the officers have also been suspended without pay.
Brown went on to say:
“Tonight, after a phsical altercation between two separate groups of protesters participating in an illegal demonstration beyond the curfew, two Buffalo Police officers knocked down an 75-year-old man. The victim is in stable but serious condition at ECMC. I was deeply disturbed by the video, as was Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood. He directed an immediate investigation into the matter and the two officers have been suspended without pay.”
— Byron W. Brown (@MayorByronBrown) June 5, 2020
Video
While speaking at George Floyd’s funeral today, Rev. Al Sharpton announced plans for another march on Washington which would coincide with the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech.
NEW: Rev. Al Sharpton announces plans for an Aug. 28 march in Washington, DC, on the anniversary of the March on Washington:
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 4, 2020
“We need to go back to Washington and stand up — black, white, Latino, Arab in the shadows of Lincoln and tell them ‘This is the time to stop this.’” pic.twitter.com/sjqd5vwVa6
