Racial politics is sometimes like the weather. Everybody complains about it or has an opinion about it, but there’s precious little that we can seemingly do about it. Here we are again, having the same conversation about the same issue and the politicians are crafting their statements and the sociologists are telling us about how the Internet is the problem and the gun enthusiasts are telling us that it’s a mental health issue and there’s a debate about whether this is only a hate crime or is it home-grown terrorism. And then there’s that darned Confederate flag flying over Charleston. Which seems to be causing a bit of angst in the Republican Party.
The race is on and race is now a major part of it. This time, though, it feels different.
Nine African-Americans were killed in their church simply because they were African-Americans. Yes, I know that many people say that Walter Scott and Eric Garner and Michael Brown were killed because they were African-American, but they were also involved in activities that brought them attention from the law. The victims in Charleston were doing no such thing. They were being good citizens, were praying, were welcoming a stranger into their world as many other Americans would. Such a terrible tragedy.
What we know for sure is that the shooter did not like black people, and he said so explicitly. He grew up in a country that’s supposed to be post-racial with a more enlightened group of young people who did not experience the Civil Rights movement or institutional segregation. They’re supposed to be more welcoming, more open, more accepting. We now know about one of the exceptions to that interpretation.
But we are also at the beginning of a presidential election cycle and we need to measure the candidates and potential candidates against their words and actions. The initial reactions were sober and immediate, with quick condemnations and expressions of horror and disbelief. That sentiment soon turned to the issue of why Dylann Roof perpetrated this crime. Many on the right called it an attack on religion.Some said worse things. President Obama looked anguished and sad when he addressed the news media the day after the killings, and his inclusion of the gun issue showed that he truly regrets not being able to get any kind of meaningful background check legislation through the Congress.
I want to know specifically what the candidates plans are in reaction to this event. They all say that we need to bring the country together, but how will they do this? I understand that I might have to wait a good long time, but now is the moment when we need to push anyone who wants to occupy the Oval Office in 2017 for answers. Specific answers.
Right now we’re asking questions from our homes and places of worship. Next time, we’ll be in the streets.
I’m so tired of writing about this crap. I’m sure you are tired of reading about it. None of us are surprised another grand jury didn’t indict a cop. Grand juries indict 99.9 percent of time. The .1 percent of the time they don’t is because a cop is on trial. The entire grand jury system needs to be scrapped. There is simply no need for it. They do exactly what the prosecutors want. If they want an indictment, they hand it down, if they don’t, they vote “no true” bill, whatever the hell that means or meant back in 1787 when maybe the grand jury system was necessary. They are now worthless, chocked with people who don’t think on their own, and just march in lock step with the orders they are given. They are just slaves to their prosecutor masters. It is time for the entire system to go.
In the Eric Garner case we have a video. Much like in the Ray Rice case. Before we had the Rice video many people were saying his punching out his fiancee wasn’t a big deal. After the video many wanted to hang Rice. Same case, same offense, but there was video. In the Michael Brown case there is no video. Imagine the difference if there had been. Now I don’t mean a difference in the outcome of the grand jury. We have all seen Eric Garner choked to death. It’s clear to see and it didn’t make a difference. Therefore there is data now that tells us police wearing cameras will not make much of a difference. Yes like with Garner, there would be a difference with public opinion but not where it counts most, in the justice system. Because a grand jury simply will not indict a police officer.
We all saw what happened. There really is no excuse to not get an indictment for probable cause. Which brings up another issue. An issue which is so glaringly unfair, such an obvious conflict of interest that the fact it had not been remedied decades ago proves that our justice system is not the best in the world. People can scream and yell about how it’s the best as much as they want, just like they scream and yell that everything in this country is the best, it still doesn’t make it a fact. In this case I’m talking about having an ordinary prosecutor take cases involving police shootings or misconduct. The same prosecutors who are on the side of the police, who work with them daily and need them to make their cases. The same prosecutors who are buddy buddy with cops, who go out and drink with them and socialize with them. This is the greatest injustice of all injustices. Any case which involves law enforcement needs to be assigned immediately to a special prosecutor that has NO connection with the cops involved. If the federal government needs to be involved then so be it. Any country that is serious about its judicial system being the best and most fair would have had this in place already. It’s that simple.
I have to love those right wingers who are now feigning bewilderment at the Garner case. Because there is a video they cannot dispute. Well, most of them. I’m not talking about the disgusting Rudy Giuliani or abhorrent Peter King. They both have enough white ethnic cop apologists (some who are indeed racists) among their followers and constituents that they can be as grotesque as they want with no consequences. The others are, all of a sudden, shocked and amazed that a grand jury didn’t indict. As though this was the first injustice ever. Even though we just had one before this. Of course they still won’t admit any kind of racism was involved. You see it’s all just a coincidence that these are white cops killing blacks, time after time.
Timothy Loehmann, the cop in Cleveland who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice was rejected by the NYPD. The same department that allowed Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who killed Eric Garner, (and who already had one civil case against him settled for tens of thousands of dollars), onto the force, rejected this guy. That’s how bad he is. He was also thrown off a previous police force due to emotional and other issues. He has been reported to have said that he wanted to join the Cleveland police department because he wanted “action.” Action? I thought cops just wanted to go home at night? Oh, and by the way, citizens deserve to go home at night as well. Even more so actually because they aren’t willingly taking a job that can be dangerous and getting money and a pension for it. But this cop was obviously nuts, so why was he hired? Because they never checked into his background. Disgraceful. And the police unions, willing to defend everything and anything a bad cop might do, make this liberal want to hate unions.
Police departments not checking backgrounds before they hire. Cops with no ability to relate on a human, emotional level to another person. When a child puts a chokehold on another, when they are just doing horseplay, and the other child screams or says they can’t breathe, the other child releases. Why? Because human nature kicks in and makes them care about the other kid, to understand that causing distress is bad and wrong. But our cops seem to lack this most basic human ability. Time after time. Whether it’s someone with their hands up or someone who has already been shot two or three times, or a child with a toy gun, or a guy gasping for air, saying 11 times, “I can’t breathe.” Several cops just stood around while Garner was choked to death, both during and after the act.
Too often these cops have no emotional or ethical conscience. There is something sociopathic about it and that’s frightening. Not only do we need police departments to do the BASIC operations of checking backgrounds but we also need better psychological screenings or people wanting to be cops. We need police officers with true concern for the lives and well being of the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect. Not just the old deli owner who serves them lunch, that’s easy, but the people they encounter daily who might be breaking the law as well. That the lives of these people are as important as their own. That they have families they want to go home to as well.
The mentality of the warrior cop must be expunged from the police force. It must be replaced by the human cop.
Darren Wilson resigned as a police officer. Why do people think this is some kind of victory? Did you really expect him to go back to work as a Ferguson police officer? Seriously? And why would he bother when he can now make six figures for an interview? This is America folks. Where you can kill a black kid and justified or not (NOT!) you will then become a millionaire through interviews and book deals and film rights. Not to mention the right wing talk radio show Wilson will probably be offered as he fits in perfectly with all of the talentless slobs in that business.
This is your capitalist system at work. No laws that make this illegal. A cop can actually kill someone on purpose if they want, because they get away with almost anything, with the knowledge that they can then quit their shitty job that nobody with a brain would want anyway, and become rich. What a country! These are the times when I want to get the next flight available and head to any other country. I truly need to get out of this lunatic asylum.
There were reports that Wilson may have received a half million for the ABC News interview with George Stuffituphisass. Georgie boy asked the obvious questions, feigning true emotions as he inquired about Wilson’s actions and if he would do anything differently. He went through the motions of asking about Brown being far away from Wilson when he shot him several times or with his hands up, but basically he just allowed Wilson to tell his side. Hey, who else did that without question? Oh yeah, Bob McCulloch!
The interview with ABC wasn’t an exclusive. Meaning the killer, Wilson, now has an agent who negotiated the deal, and other news agencies can also pay six figures for future interviews. It’s just that ABC was the most aggressive whore this time. To think I used to work for them. Makes me feel like I need one of those showers they gave to Karen Silkwood at the nuclear power plant.
But there will be other media whores that will throw big money at Wilson. Meanwhile Michael Brown’s family is left with nothing. No son and no justice. Yes the more money Wilson makes the more they can get from him in a civil suit but that’s even a long shot since a jury won’t side against a cop even in that setting. Against O.J. Simpson yes, a cop no. Funny how all of those white people who were up in arms about Simpson getting off are so joyous about Wilson getting off.
Meanwhile this sham of a verdict with the Grand Jury, which every legal scholar has torn apart especially since the transcripts were released, has really brought the usual right wing vicious scum out of the closets. None worse than Rudy Giuliani who continues to live in 1990’s New York City when his police department was regularly violating the civil rights of blacks. He won’t stop talking about black on black crime which he incredulously correlates to the need for an all white police force. Also he won’t talk about how the people who commit those crimes almost always go to jail, unlike cops who commit crimes. Black on black crime, which has gone way, way down takes place in black neighborhoods as white on white crime takes place in white neighborhoods. Makes sense no?
Look, let’s remember who Rudy is shall we? He is the guy who bullied the New York City emergency response center into One World Trade Center after the first terrorist attack there even though the people who knew better were against it. We know what the result was of his power grab. He also took away vital firefighting gear which led to the deaths of many fire fighters on 9/11. Because you see Rudy always gets what Rudy wants.
But wait there’s more. He is also the guy who hired Bernie Kerik as police chief. Kerik the felon. He also recommended the soon to be felon for Homeland Security Director! This is Rudy Giuliani. A man who is still worshiped by some idiot New Yorkers yet despised by his own children. A guy who cares more about the welfare of the New York Yankees than Americans.
Anyway I truly digress. Darren Wilson is becoming rich. Rich off the killing of Michael Brown. Can you just imagine what Brown’s parents are going through? I can’t. They have to hear about these interviews, maybe even watch them. I hope they don’t. Wilson’s story would be given zero stars by any reviewer if it were made into a film because it is that unbelievable, actually laughable if the result wasn’t so tragic. But seriously folks, even if you are brain dead enough to buy his depiction of the events that led to him killing Brown, you can’t believe that he should become rich over someone else’s death. To make money that he wouldn’t make in a full career as a cop from one or two interviews.
Or maybe you are so brainwashed by the out of control capitalist system you live in that you think it’s all just fine and dandy. If so I feel sorry for you and have disdain for you in equal measure. This is one of those things that truly would never happen in any other country.
Loose cannon Donald Sterling vowed in court on Wednesday to fight the NBA will all his might until his dying day. The racist Clippers owner was forced out by the league for violating owner’s rules and for being a total racist. In a deal reached by his wife to sell the team, Sterling said emphatically that selling is not happening!
Donald Sterling denounced his wife, her lawyers and the NBA from the witness stand Wednesday, saying he would never sell the Los Angeles Clippers and vowing a lifetime of lawsuits against the league.
“Make no mistake today,” Sterling shouted toward the end of his second day of testimony in the trial to determine his wife’s right to make a $2 billion deal to sell the Clippers, “I will never, ever sell this team and until I die I will be suing the NBA for this terrible violation under antitrust.”
He was followed to the stand by wife Shelly, who tried to approach him in the front row of the courtroom after she was done for the day.
“Get away from me, you pig!” Sterling shouted.
The judge then admonished him to make no further comments.
He claimed a woman in Time Square attacked him simply for taking pictures, then Anthony Cumia from the Opie and Anthony Show went on Twitter and began a barrage of racist and violent tweets calling the woman, who happens to be black, all sort of names including “whore”, “bitch” and “slut.” And those are the ‘decent’ names, compared to the other names he used.
According to tweets from Anthony, the woman and the “5 blacks” that joined her are “animals” who “prey on white people”:
Patrick Reilly, the Senior Vice President of SiriusXM issued the following statement on Friday, confirming to Buzzfeed that Anthony was in deed fired.
SiriusXM has terminated its relationship with Anthony Cumia of the Opie & Anthony channel. The decision was made, and Cumia informed, late Thursday, July 3 after careful consideration of his racially-charged and hate-filled remarks on social media. Those remarks and postings are abhorrent to SiriusXM, and his behavior is wholly inconsistent with what SiriusXM represents.
Here are just some of the tweets from Anthony Cumia that got him fired!
Sirius decided to cave and fire me. Welcome to bizarro world. Fired for shit that wasn’t even on the air & wasn’t illegal. So, who’s next?
In the video footage, the white women repeatedly berates the man behind the camera, calling him a “dirty f–king n–ger” because he apparently scared her kids when he started his car.
The woman yelling at the man through his car window
“You’re a n–ger!”
This is allegedly what the woman said, pointedly and vehemently, to the man recording her from his car window as she called her husband to tell him to come and deal with him.
Apparently the confrontation on May 30 started when the man, presumably black, got into his car and started his vehicle in a Cheektowaga, N.Y., parking lot, scaring the woman’s
two children. This allegedly set the woman off, and she started a racial-slur-filled tirade against the man in the vehicle, who calmly began recording her.
“I called you a n–ger. You’re a n–ger! Nasty f–king n–ger!” the woman shouted at the man while allegedly on the phone with her husband. She was apparently calling him to come and beat up the unidentified man, posting under the YouTube name IAMOYAB.
“Talk to this f–king n–ger right now. I’m telling you, he’s recording me,” she said to her husband. “Tell him you will f–king kill him. I will f–king yank his ass out the car.”
Meanwhile, the man continued to record from his car, occasionally punctuating her rant with “Please do”—like when she threatened to pull him out of his vehicle or call the cops—and “very well.”
The video ends with the woman telling the man to stay where he is so her husband can come and beat his “ass,” before she threatens to “whip” her coffee at him—at which point he rolls
up his car windows and locks his doors, commenting in disbelief, “Racism is alive and well, I tell you … amazing. Absolutely amazing. This is where we live at. This is exactly where we
live and what goes on. I start my car, she calls me a n–ger. Amazing.”
A Twitter account being linked on social media to the woman in the video identifies her as Janelle Ambrosia, whose bio lists her as a “loud mouth Italian.”
Tweets from the account were sent out on Wednesday as news of the video, which was posted to YouTube on Tuesday, broke—with Ambrosia defending the stance allegedly taken in the video.
Donald sterling recently made news for telling his girlfriend not to bring black people to his basketball games. The owner of the Clippers was quickly rebuked by the NBA find, and is now being forced to sell his team.
Last Sunday, Sterling, known now for his racist statements and actions against minority, went to Zion Missionary Baptist Church – a predominantly black church in South Los Angeles. The invitation came from the pastor of the church and reports say Sterling was warmly welcomed by the congregation.
When asked what he thought of the service, Sterling said it was “beautiful.”
Although God works miracles, converting this lifetime racist may be a lost cause.
Yet again, another story featuring Justin Bieber and racism.
In the video, posted to TMZ.com, the pop star, then 15, asks: “Why are black people afraid of chain saws?”
He answers his own question: “Run n*****, n*****, n*****, n*****,” he says, imitating the sound of a chain saw. Then he laughs.
TMZ reported it got the video four years ago but decided against posting it then because of Bieber’s age and because he “immediately told his friends what he did was stupid.” It was reportedly shot backstage at a promotional event.
“As a young man, I didn’t understand the power of certain words and how they can hurt. I thought it was OK to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but didn’t realize at the time that it wasn’t funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance,” Bieber, now 20, said in a statement.
He added: “I take my friendships with people of all cultures very seriously and I apologize for offending or hurting anyone with my childish and inexcusable mistake. I was a kid then and I am a man now who knows my responsibility to the world and to not make that mistake again.”
I think this is the Republicans’ way of re-branding their party – getting rid of the racists… but, who will be left after all the racists are gone?
LAS VEGAS — Southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy no longer is a Republican. Bundy, who is embroiled in a dispute over grazing with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, has switched his affiliation to the Independent American Party.
He and his wife, Carol, signed registration forms to the cheers of supporters at an Independent American Party gathering in Las Vegas on Friday night.
The event was held to honor Bundy for what organizers called “his courage in standing up for state sovereignty.”
Besides being a total racist, I knew there was something else about Donald Sterling I didn’t like. And now I know what that something is.
In yet another interview, Sterling decided to take on President Obama, calling the president’s response to his racist statement was “flippant.”
“I think that was such bad judgment on his part to make a flippant comment from Malaysia.”
Of course you remember the comment the president made. When asked about Sterling’s racist comments, when he requested that his girlfriend refrain from bringing black people to his LA Clippers games, the president replied, “When people — when ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk. And that’s what happened here.”
A reason of a statement as far as I can tell, but Donald sterling apparently thinks it was disrespectful of the president to answer a question posed to him.
Thinking the president was disrespectful? Yeah, that’s how you make friends Mr sterling.
Donald Sterling went on CNN and dropped this gem. My overall take on this man and this interview? I walk away feeling sorry for him. I pity his ignorance, his inability to see his racist ways.
It is never the racists’ fault, someone else is always to be blamed. In an interview with CNN, Sterling’s scapegoat was “the girl” who recorded his racist rants.
“I’m not a racist. I made a terrible mistake,” Mr Sterling told CNN. “I’m here to apologise.”
“When I listen to that tape, I don’t even know how I can say words like that,” he said. “I don’t know why the girl had me say those things.”
Sterling, the present owner of the LA Clippers, was recently banned from the the day to day activities of the team and the NBA is currently going through the process of removing him as team owner. But the 81 year old Sterling has decided to fight to maintain ownership, and feels that his past will help him regain ownership.
“I’m a good member who made a mistake,” he said. “Am I entitled to one mistake, am I after 35 years? Am I entitled to one mistake? It’s a terrible mistake, and I’ll never do it again.”
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