Racial Justice

Protests Over LAPD Killing Of Mentally Ill, Black Homeless Man

March 11, 2015 Bethania Palma Marcus, www.truth-out.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Los Angeles, police brutality, Racial Justice

Roughly 200 protesters gathered in front of the Los Angeles Police headquarters downtown at least twice last week, demanding justice for a mentally ill homeless man who was shot to death by LAPD officers March 1 in a videotaped killing that went viral. The video, which has been viewed millions of times, shows Charley Keunang, who was known to his fellow skid row residents as "Africa," because he was from the West African nation of Cameroon, being subdued on the ground by multiple officers and tased. Three officers then opened fire on him, leaving him motionless. The shooting, along with the recent release of a scathing Department of Justice report on racism by the Ferguson Police Department, have amplified even further the national spotlight on racial bias and violence in American policing.

Tony Robinson Shooting Protest At Capitol Draws 1,500

March 10, 2015 Dan Simmons, www.host.madison.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Madison, police brutality, Racial Justice, Wisconsin

Students from throughout Madison left school and took their rage, sorrow and demands to the city’s power centers on Monday, rocking the state Capitol rotunda with chants of “Justice for Tony” then demanding a meeting with Mayor Paul Soglin and Police Chief Mike Koval while massed outside the City-County Building. In loud, well-choreographed voices, they vowed to press public officials and police for consequences in the death last Friday night of Tony Robinson, an unarmed 19-year-old shot by a police officer after an altercation on the Near East Side. “We demand that the officer who shot our brother be arrested,” the group of 1,500 young people chanted in call-and-response outside the City-County Building.

Investigation Finds Officer Aiming Weapon At Protest Within Policy

March 9, 2015 Jennifer Baker, www.revolution-news.com Educate! Bay Area, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

The California Highway Patrol has concluded a plainclothes officer acted within department policy when he drew his gun without identifying himself and aimed it at protesters during a scuffle when he and his partner were unmasked during an anti-police brutality protest in December. The unnamed officer was found to be justified for drawing his gun and aiming it at everyone present after his partner wrestled with a protester who struck him on Dec. 10. The investigation concluded about three weeks ago. Despite the obvious error of having CHP Officers armed and undercover, walking amongst an anti-police brutality protest while instigating violence and vandalism along the way being the flawed behavior. Avery Browne, chief of the CHP’s Golden Gate Division says: “Was it unnerving? Yes. Shocking? Yes,”.

Meet One Of The New Civil Rights Leaders

March 9, 2015 Phillip Agnew and Michelle Chen, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Civil Rights, Dream Defenders, History, Racial Justice, Youth

I’m excited because it seems people are waking up—people from low- and middle-income communities, people who have typically been in the margins, who weren’t part of organizations. When we first started mobilizing in 2012, I could have never imagined things would have happened this quickly. On the other hand, this really is something that, if you look back at history, was easy to predict. You have police who do not come from the community and have a culture of contempt for black and brown people, especially when they’re young and poor. You have communities with no say in the way their lives are lived, no educational opportunities, no jobs that will make ends meet. And you have rampant and growing explosions between police and the people that they’re supposed to protect. This is a recipe for disaster. This is 1967. This is 1968, when cities around the country, including Chicago, Newark, Detroit, Oakland and Watts, began to explode.

End US Blockade Of Cuba & Military Occupation Of Guantanamo!

March 7, 2015 Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Manolo De Los Santos, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Cuba, Guantanamo, Imperialism, Police, Racial Justice, Torture

Cuba has secured these rights for black people, however… there is still much work to do. We have a responsibility, as people of color worldwide to defend all of the advances that Cuba has made. Cuba is a country that has stuck its neck out for Black liberation struggles around the world, not to mention the liberation struggles in Angola and many of countries and the strong role Cuba played in the liberation of South Africa in freeing Nelson Mandela. One must acknowledge what is currently happening, that Cuba was the first country to step up to fight the Ebola virus. When most countries, only committed money (and we don’t know where this money goes), Cuba actually put up the lives of its doctors to stop the virus. It’s amazing how Cuba has offered scholarships to young black people from all over the African continent and all across the America’s to come study here and become professionals.

Why Malcolm X Should Be Recognized In Selma This Weekend

March 6, 2015 Kirsten West Savali, www.theroot.com Educate! Civil Rights, History, Malcolm X, Media, Racial Justice

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) came and went on Feb. 21 of this year. And just as in other years when the date of Malcolm’s assassination came around, his name trended for a few hours and then the stifling silence rolled back in, erasing his name from the social media landscape almost as quickly as it had re-emerged. This year the occasion didn’t go completely unacknowledged, and some would even say that Malcolm was recognized in all the ways that mattered. There was massive coverage of the occasion right here at The Root, as well as other sites geared to black audiences. There was a CNN special that gave us a glimpse into the last moments of Malcolm’s life via the people closest to him that day. And the Shabazz Center organized a spectacular program in his honor—with a diversity in the ethnic, racial, religious and cultural DNA of the crowd in attendance that was a powerful reflection of the man himself.

Selma: Experienced As A Child, Remembered As An Adult

March 6, 2015 Sophia Bracy Harris, www.equalvoiceforfamilies.org Educate! Civil Rights, Economic Justice, History, Racial Justice

It was New Year’s Day, January 1, 1966. My older sister, several of my younger siblings, a cousin and I had attended the annual Elmore County Emancipation Proclamation Celebration (the observance of Abraham Lincoln’s signing the proclamation freeing Blacks from slavery). The guest speaker for this occasion was a Birmingham civil rights preacher, Rev. Jesse Douglas, whose powerful message and melodious voice singing, “I told Jesus that it would be all right, if he changed my name,” had the audience on its feet for most of his sermon. Little did I know that he was preparing us for the most traumatic experience of our lives, which would take place in less than four hours. We went home, excitedly sharing with our parents the experience of the evening with this wonderful civil rights preacher.

Justice Department: The Problem Is Way Bigger Than Ferguson

March 6, 2015 Matt Sledge and Ryan Reilly, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Ferguson, police brutality, Racial Justice

It was billed as an investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. But a hard-hittingreport released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice also reads as an indictment of cities and towns across the St. Louis region. The report implicates at least four other municipalities in alleged misconduct or questionable behavior. And as the Justice Department itself acknowledged, many of the conditions described in the report could have been written about any number of the 90 municipalities in St. Louis County. "What's listed in the report about Ferguson is a widespread practice," said Thomas Harvey, executive director for the Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that has brought attention to the municipal courts in St. Louis County over the past several months.

Why A Mass Movement Is ‘Payment’ For Progress

March 6, 2015 Rev. Rodney Williams, www.equalvoiceforfamilies.org Resist! Economic Justice, History, Living Wage, Racial Justice

The wages of the laborers who run your stores, who feed your customers who make you rich so that you can send your sons and daughters to private schools. The ones whose wages you have stolen, are crying out and their cries have been heard. They have reached the ears of our lord, our God. Although you live in the lap of luxury, God is about to flip the script. I’m here this evening as a result of a moral issue which is concerning the income gap between the rich corporate executives and the everyday laborers that make them rich. Today, everything is like it was in the days of James. Much of the wealth of this nation is still the result of exploitation and unfair compensation of the workers, especially in the fast-food industry.

From Crispus Attucks To Michael Brown: Race & Revolution

March 6, 2015 Amy Goodman, www.truthdig.com Educate! Ferguson, History, Racial Justice, Revolution

March 5 marks an important but oft-overlooked anniversary. On a winter’s day 245 years ago, in the year 1770, an angry crowd formed in Boston, then the capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. People were enraged by the extortionate taxes imposed by the British Parliament. In order to quell the public furor, the British sent troops, who violently quashed dissent. On that cold day, people had had enough. Word spread after a British private beat a young man with the butt of his musket. By late day, hundreds of Bostonians gathered, jeering the small crowd of redcoat soldiers arrayed with muskets loaded. The soldiers fired into the crowd, instantly killing Crispus Attucks and two others. Attucks was a man of African and Native American ancestry, and is considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.

Ferguson’s True Criminals

March 6, 2015 Jamelle Bouie, www.slate.com Educate! Ferguson, Law, Michael Brown, police brutality, Racial Justice

Take traffic stops. Not only did police stop blacks at a rate greater than their share of the population—from 2012 to 2014, blacks were 67 percent of Ferguson residents but 85 percent of traffic stops—but they were twice as likely to search blacks than they were whites, who were 26 percent more likely to have actual contraband. You see the same dynamic with small, discretionary infractions. Ninety-five percent of tickets for jaywalking were against black residents, as were 94 percent of all “failure to comply” charges. Either black people were the only Ferguson citizens to jaywalk, or the department was targeting blacks for enforcement. On the rare occasion when police charged whites with these minor offenses, they were 68 percent more likely to have their cases dismissed.

Reactions To DOJ’s Scathing Report On Racist Policing

March 5, 2015 Rigoberto Hernandez, www.npr.org Resist! Democracy, Ferguson, police brutality, Racial Justice

Over at the Two-Way blog, NPR's Carrie Johnson breaks down the shocking numbers. "Blacks make up 67 percent of the population in Ferguson. But they make up 85 percent of people subject to vehicle stops and 93 percent of those arrested. Blacks are twice as likely to be searched as whites, but less likely to have drugs or weapons. "The report found that 88 percent of times in which Ferguson police used force it was against blacks and all 14 cases of police dog bites involved blacks." And, as NPR has previously reported, the courts have problems of their own. "Blacks were 68 percent less likely to have cases dismissed by Ferguson municipal judges and disproportionately likely to be subject to arrest warrants. From October 2012 to October 2014, 96 percent of people arrested in traffic stops solely for an outstanding warrant were black."

Police Killed Over Twice The People Reported By US Gov’t

March 5, 2015 Tom McCarthy, www.theguardian.com Educate! Department of Justice, Ferguson, New York City (NYC), police brutality, Racial Justice

An average of 545 people killed by local and state law enforcement officers in the US went uncounted in the country’s most authoritative crime statistics every year for almost a decade, according to a report released on Tuesday. The first-ever attempt by US record-keepers to estimate the number of uncounted “law enforcement homicides” exposed previous official tallies as capturing less than half of the real picture. The new estimate – an average of 928 people killed by police annually over eight recent years, compared to 383 in published FBI data – amounted to a more glaring admission than ever before of the government’s failure to track how many people police kill.

Rev. Pinkney Denied Appeal Bond

March 4, 2015 Abayomi Azikiwe, www.spyghana.com Resist! Civil Rights, Faith, Mass Incarceration, Racial Justice

Pinkney was convicted by an all-white jury in November and he was sentenced to 30-120 months in prison on Dec. 15. He is currently housed at Marquette Correctional Facility, a 10-12 hour drive from his home in Benton Township. He was indicted after a group of residents collected enough signatures of registered voters seeking to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower. Dissatisfaction with Hightower stemmed from the poor economic conditions in the majority African American city where unemployment and poverty are widespread. Benton Harbor is a city of approximately 10,000 people in southwest Michigan. Nearly 90 percent of the population is African American yet across the bridge in St. Joseph, the seat of the county, the city is nearly all-white and far more affluent.

DOJ Finds Racial Bias In Ferguson Traffic Stops

March 3, 2015 Matt Apuzzo, www.nytimes.com Educate! Ferguson, Law, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

The Justice Department has nearly completed a highly critical report accusing the police in Ferguson, Mo., of making discriminatory traffic stops of African-Americans that created years of racial animosity leading up to an officer’s shooting of a black teenager last summer, law enforcement officials said. According to several officials who have been briefed on the report’s conclusions, the report criticizes the city for disproportionately ticketing and arresting African-Americans and relying on the fines to balance the city’s budget. The report, which is expected to be released as early as this week, will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on civil rights charges. Either way, the result is likely to be significant changes inside the Ferguson Police Department, which is at the center of a national debate over race and policing.

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