Racial Justice

Washington Slurskins Shamed In Mass Minnesota Protest

November 3, 2014 Randy Furst and Dee Depass, www.startribune.com Resist! Change the Name, Indigenous Rights, Racial Justice

Buoyed by thousands of protesters from Minnesota and at least 10 other states who converged on TCF Stadium on Sunday, activists determined to retire the Washington Slurskins nickname vowed to take their campaign to every remaining Washington NFL game this season. David Glass, president of the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media, said protesters will continue to escalate pressure on the NFL football team, sending activists and banners to demonstrate at the team’s home and away games. Washington owner Daniel Snyder has been adamant that he will not drop the team’s name, despite the growing pressure from American Indians, civil rights organizations and politicians who call the term racist and offensive.

Pranksters Expose The NYPD’s Serious Racial Profiling Problem

November 1, 2014 Alex Smith, www.ryot.org Educate! NYPD, police brutality, Racial Justice, Racial Profiling

The NYPD was just caught racial profiling yet again. This time, the proof is on video and it’s so extreme, it will make your stomach drop. Two YouTube pranksters staged an experiment — arguing in front of the same policeman while they were dressed in Western clothes and, then again, twenty minutes later in Muslim clothes. The difference between the officer’s response to the scenarios is stark. When Adam Saleh and Sheiikh Akbar were dressed in Western city garb and speaking in American accents, the police offer pretended not to see them. Just twenty minutes later, they wore what they called Muslim “cultural clothes” and spoke with a foreign accent while they argued. What followed was one really angry officer.

Policing Isn’t A Solution For Youth In Baltimore

October 28, 2014 Angel Elliot and Bart Lubow, www.therealnews.com Educate! Education, Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Racial Justice

We have essentially two sets of youth policies in Baltimore, as is true in most large urban settings. We have a group of policies that are aimed at kids who we think are causing trouble or are likely to get into trouble, and then we have policies that apply to the rest of youth and that provide them with opportunities for development that all of us would like to see all children have. And we've got to somehow reconcile the fact that we have these two systems, one that affects primarily kids of color from the poorest of our communities, and the other that apply to the more privileged kids, and especially to white kids. So the first question is: are we providing all children with the right set of opportunities for them to grow in healthy ways?

We Charge Genocide.

October 23, 2014 We Charge Genocide, www.report.wechargegenocide.org Educate! Genocide, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

We Charge Genocide is a grassroots, inter-generational, volunteer effort to center the voices and experiences of the young people most targeted by police and most impacted by police violence in Chicago. We offer a vehicle for needed organizing and social transformation to resist police violence in Chicago. The name, We Charge Genocide, comes from a petition filed to the United Nations in 1951 that documented 153 racial killings and other human rights abuses across the United States, mostly by the local police. Today, police violence in Chicago continues to violate human rights principles as seen in the daily harassment, abuse, and targeting of youth of color by CPD officers. Following the legacy of our name, We Charge Genocide has submitted a report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture: Police Violence Against Chicago’s Youth of Color. The report reveals the disturbing and intolerable truth that police officers regularly engage torture. Specifically, the Chicago Police Department is in violation of Articles 2, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14 of the Convention of Torture through the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of youth of color in Chicago

Negotiations Led To End Of Occupy SLU Protest

October 22, 2014 Koran Addo, www.stltoday.com Resist! Ferguson, Occupy, police brutality, Racial Justice, St. Louis

For six days last week, protesters lived in tents near St. Louis University’s clock tower, flying an upside-down American flag and talking to students as they walked by about inequality and systemic racism. For many on campus, Occupy SLU was a polarizing event that garnered support from a significant number of people on campus, confused others and triggered hostility from many, including some parents, who wanted the protesters gone. The latter group got their wish on Saturday when protesters packed up their tents and left. What seemed like an abrupt ending to a protest that many people suspected could linger for several weeks, was actually the result of negotiations between SLU’s new president and protest organizers.

The Racial Double Standard On Gun Violence

October 21, 2014 Josh Horwitz, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Gun Control, Racial Justice

One week ago, in an op-ed for the far right wing website World Net Daily, National Rifle Association (NRA) Board Member Ted Nugent commented on the violence that has made national headlines in Ferguson, Missouri, and stated, "The overwhelming majority of violent crime across America is conducted by young, black males who, sadly, are on the self-inflicted expressway to prison or an early grave-or more often than not, both." Where to begin... For starters, Nugent has blatantly misstated the facts. In truth, more whites are arrested for violent crime in the United States than blacks (even though African Americans are arrested for such crimes at a higher rate than whites). There are multiple socioeconomic and structural causes that increase an individual's propensity for violent behavior. Pigmentation is simply not a factor.

It’s Legal To Film Cops

October 20, 2014 Christopher Mathias, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! Ferguson, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Journalism, Media, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

NEW YORK -- It's becoming clearer and clearer that smartphones have ushered in a new era of police accountability. Since mid-July, when a bystander on Staten Island filmed the death of Eric Garner in a prohibited police chokehold, at least eight other unsettling videos, most of them captured by smartphone, have emerged showing instances of apparent excessive force by NYPD officers. Four such videos have appeared this month alone. Although police might intimidate bystanders into thinking otherwise, it's perfectly legal to film the cops -- not only in New York, but everywhere in the U.S. -- as long as you don't get in their way. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, encourages people to keep using their phones to film troubling police incidents. The more people who post these videos online, she said, the more likely it is that other people will reach for their own phones when they see cops doing something questionable.

Open Letter From Ferguson Protesters & Allies

October 18, 2014 Ferguson Protesters and Allies, www.scribd.com Educate! Direct Action, Ferguson, Protests, Racial Justice

We are living an American Horror Story. The unlawful slaughter of black bodies by the hands of power has continued day after day, year afteryear, century after century, life by precious life, since before the first chain was slipped around blackwrists.Black youth, brimming with untapped potential, but seen as worthless and unimportant. Black activists,stalwart in pursuit of liberation, but perceived as perpetual threats to order and comfort. Black men,truly and earnestly clinging to our dignity, written off as the ravenous, insatiable black savage. Blackwomen, always unflinchingly running toward our freedom, dismissed as bitter and angry after longdenial and suffering.

What If Black America Were A Country?

October 18, 2014 Theodore R. Johnson, www.theatlantic.com Educate! Democracy, Racial Justice, United States, wealth inequality

In a recent debate with a CNN contributor, the conservative radio talk-show host Larry Elder declared that “if black America were a country, it would be the 15th-wealthiest country in the world.” His math proved incorrect, and his invocation of “black America” was followed by a refutation of the concept by a fellow black conservative. Shortly after Elder’s remarks, the Republican strategist Ron Christie argued that there is no such thing as "black America" and, further, that the very notion of it is antithetical “to our national motto of E Pluribus Unum.” Whether these men know it or not, they are continuing a debate that W.E.B. Du Bois gave voice to 80 years ago in his resignation speech from the NAACP. In a farewell address titled, “A Negro Nation Within a Nation,” Du Bois asserted: The peculiar position of Negroes in America offers an opportunity. … With the use of their political power, their power as consumers, and their brainpower … Negroes can develop in the United States an economic nation within a nation ...

Slave Patrols Alive And Well, Part 1: Vonderrit Myers

October 16, 2014 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Ferguson, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice, Vonderrit Myers

“This latest yet unidentified St. Louis police executioner claimed that he followed Myers and his friends because he felt that the teens were acting suspiciously.” Ten minutes earlier he had taken the turkey sandwich Berhe Beyet made him and cradled it away from his friend's playful snatching. Then stood breaking off a piece that he shared with another friend. By now, his mother has seen this tape of him standing in silhouette, and watched his peaceful chewing. On his way out the door he gives yet another friend a bite of what he did not know was his last supper, walking off into a night every parent in America cannot begin to imagine. A night every black person in America knows is coming and that the next one coming could be them—might as well be them—every time they imagine the high caliber bullet shattering his cheek bone, eye socket, aorta the medical examiner identified as the cause of death.

LAPD Manhandles Father’s Baby Then Tazes, Beats And Arrests Dad

October 16, 2014 Alissa Kokkins, www.theantimedia.org Resist! police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

LOS ANGELES, CA – Around the block from where Ezell Ford was killed by LAPD, officers from the Newton Division stopped, Brandon Dawson, 26, on Sunday evening. Dawson had just finished his shift as a dental assistant and was picking up his seven-month-old daughter from his grandmother’s house. He was strapping the baby’s carrier into the car when officers stopped Brandon asking why Brandon had parked in the private driveway. Brandon explained that there were no other spaces available and he had just pulled up to pick up his daughter.Photo via Linda WashingtonThe police asked for no papers, and told Brandon to put his hands up as they snatched the father’s baby. Soon after, Brandon would be tazered, beaten, and arrested by police on suspicion of assaulting a gang officer from LAPD’s Newton Division, according to Officer Lilliana Preciado.

My Cousin Was Shot Dead By A Police Officer

October 15, 2014 Anand Jahi, www.yesmagazine.org Organize! New Economy, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice

My cousin, Charles Goodridge, was one of many unarmed black men killed by police this past summer. Black communities across the country have mobilized in response to this spate of high profile police killings. Much of the recent organizing and activism has rightfully focused on the destructive role of police in the black community. But as my cousin’s and other victims’ stories reveal, fighting to eradicate racist policing is not enough—as long as a racist economy is left intact. I believe that if Charles had been white, the officer who killed him would not have been so quick to arrest or shoot him. But before he was a victim of racist policing, Charles was a victim of a racist economy.

“Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!”: Gesture, Choreography, And Protest In Ferguson

October 15, 2014 Anusha Kedhar, www.thefeministwire.com Strategize! Direct Action, Ferguson, Protests, Racial Justice

Unlike other slogans, though, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” is not just voiced. It is also embodied. Contained within the phrase is both a plea not to shoot, as well as the bodily imperative to lift one’s hands up. Since Michael Brown’s murder, we’ve seen photos of young black men and women in Ferguson, Tibetan monks from India, black Harvard law students, school children in Missouri, young people in Moscow, and a church congregation in New York City with their hands up. What does this gesture mean for the different bodies that enact it? How do protesters assign new meanings to such a codified bodily gesture? How can we read these protests as choreographic tactics and gestures of resistance? Why is the deployment of the body in the case of the Ferguson protests so significant? I want to offer five ways of reading this gesture in the following list, which is by no means exhaustive...

Massive Demonstration At St Louis U. For Brown And Myers

October 14, 2014 Cassandra Rules, www.thefreethoughtproject.com Resist! Ferguson, police brutality, Racial Justice, Social Change, St. Louis

St Louis, MO — On Sunday’s action for the Ferguson October Weekend of Resistance, demonstrators gathered at the site of the killing of VonDerrit Myers for another very secretive act of civil disobedience. When protesters arrived in the area, police had once again set up check points at all side streets leading to the location. Non residents were not permitted to enter, and residents were forced to provide identification to be able to get to their homes. At the memorial site there were at least two hundred people when we arrived around 1 am. We came to learn that we were in Group 2 with the Myers family, and that another group had already set off marching. We kept to the side walks and marched quietly to make sure we could peacefully make it to our destination, although none of us had any idea where that was.

Ferguson: Red Fountains For Generations Of Blood

October 13, 2014 Kevin Gosztola, www.dissenter.firedoglake.com Educate! Ferguson, police brutality, Racial Justice

There were well over a thousand people from various community, union and activist organizations out in the streets of downtown St. Louis yesterday. They were not just marching for justice for Mike Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was gunned down by white Ferguson police officer, but were also coming together to highlight the need to transform a moment into a movement that will confront police violence in communities. One of the more powerful moments of the day came when Montague Simmons, chair of the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) and founder of Hands Up United, took the stage during the rally after the march through the city. Simmons mentioned that the “red fountains” were freaking him out because they made him think of the blood shed throughout generations in America. [Note: St. Louis dyed the fountain red for the Cardinals baseball team, which is currently in the playoffs.]

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