Racial Justice

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.]

The Execution Of John Crawford III

October 13, 2014 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! John Crawford, police brutality, Police the Police, Racial Justice, Racism, Walmart

Beavercreek, Ohio, police officers Sean Williams and David Darkow came into Wal-Mart with weapons drawn, prepared to spill blood. Within minutes, John Crawford III, an unarmed 22-year old shopping for a BB gun, was fatally shot lying in a pool of blood. This was the second kill for Officer Williams. A grand jury investigating the murder determined that Crawford had not committed a crime nor did he do anything wrong. John’s father, John Crawford Jr., expressing the families shock and disbelief, questioned how a young man can go into a store as a customer and be murdered by police. "If he did nothing wrong, if he did not commit a crime, then why is he not here with us? I'm at a loss for words. I'm appalled." The video that contains the 911 call shows the execution of John Crawford III by police. Viewers should be warned; the video is graphic and deeply disturbing. The surveillance video from Wal-Mart was released before the grand jury announcement.

Deadly Force, In Black And White

October 13, 2014 Ryan Gabrielson, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Eric Sagara, www.propublica.com Educate! Ferguson, police brutality, Racial Justice

Young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts – 21 times greater i, according to a ProPublica analysis of federally collected data on fatal police shootings. The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police. One way of appreciating that stark disparity, ProPublica's analysis shows, is to calculate how many more whites over those three years would have had to have been killed for them to have been at equal risk. The number is jarring – 185, more than one per week.

Protesters March In Clayton, Ferguson, Kick Off FergusonOctober

October 11, 2014 SL Today, www.stltoday.com Resist! Ferguson, Human Rights, police brutality, Racial Justice

CLAYTON • A rain-soaked crowd of several hundred people marched in downtown Clayton on Friday afternoon, kicking off this weekend’s FergusonOctober rallies and protests. Hours later, a similar crowd took to the streets of Ferguson for a candlelight march and protest across from the police department, beating drums and chanting into the night as well as blocking West Florissant Avenue. Several protesters used bullhorns to direct the crowd, some asked protesters to move to south St. Louis where a police officer killed a teenager earlier this week after the teen opened fire on him. The Clayton march began outside St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch’s office. Activists have demanded that McCulloch step aside in the Michael Brown case. Clayton police had barricaded Carondelet Avenue between Central and Bemiston avenues in anticipation of the event.

Climate Justice, Black Organizing, And Mike Brown

October 9, 2014 Nene Igietseme, www.storybasedstrategy.org Organize! Climate Change, Environment, police brutality, Racial Justice, Racism

I have two beautiful black brothers and my world is filled with black men, women, teenagers and community members whom I love and care about. So, the shock, pain, and anger of the moment, while familiar, were almost paralyzing. Hope, however, grew from recalling the work of folks at the convening like Ed Whitfield from the Fund for Democratic Communities, Colette Pichon Battle from the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, organizers from Cooperation Jackson, people from Detroit, and of course folks from our host city, Richmond. These people work at the intersection of black organizing, climate justice, and building a new economy. The Our Power Campaign defines the frontlines as the sites where the impact of the system is felt most and hardest. In terms of the violence and repression that our economic system produces, in this country, the frontline, among brown and native folks, is black people and black communities. Racism, capitalism, and the injustices they perpetuate of poverty, violence, and environmental degradation are intertwined.

US Supreme Court And Tyranny Of The Minority

October 9, 2014 Greg Coleridge, www.poclad.org Educate! Law, Racial Justice, Racism, SCOTUS

By contrast, the Court has been repeatedly guilty itself of being a tyrant of the minority (as in nine unelected judges reversing laws and regulations) and a tyrant for the minority (as in corporations and the super wealthy) by, for example, overturning 170 democratically enacted laws that protected workers, including children, during the early 20th century. More recently, the Court has granted additional power and authority to corporations and the wealthy few. Supreme Court decisions weakened class action lawsuits against corporations, broadened the immunity protections of pharmaceutical corporations from suits over defective medications, heightened the barriers against workers who sue over workplace retaliation and harassment, increased the ability of commercial corporations to collect damages from municipalities that seek to impose conditions for building permits, and prohibited current US residents from suing Shell Oil corporation for human rights violations in Nigeria.

Demonstrators ‘Disrupt’ St. Louis Symphony For Mike Brown

October 6, 2014 Rebecca Rivas, www.stlamerican.com Resist! Art, Direct Action, Ferguson, Racial Justice

Just after intermission, about 50 people disrupted the St. Louis Symphony’s performance of Brahms Requiem on Saturday night, singing “Justice for Mike Brown.” As symphony conductor Markus Stenz stepped to the podium to begin the second act of German Requiem, one middle-aged African-American man stood up in the middle of the theater and sang, “What side are you on friend, what side are you on?” In an operatic voice, another woman located a few rows away stood up and joined him singing, “Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all.” Several more audience members sprinkled throughout the theater and in the balcony rose up and joined in the singing.

False Perception Of Black Crime At Root Of Injustice

September 15, 2014 The Sentencing Project, www.sentencingproject.org Educate! Ferguson, Mass Incarceration, Racial Justice

This report examines how racial perceptions of crime are a key cause of the severity of punishment in the United States. Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies, authored by Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D., research analyst at The Sentencing Project, synthesizes two decades of research revealing that white Americans’ strong associations of crime with blacks and Latinos are related to their support for punitive policies that disproportionately impact people of color. Coming on the heels of the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, the report demonstrates that the consequences of white Americans’ strong associations of crime with blacks and Latinos extend far beyond policing.

Murder, Mass Incarceration, Militarization, Genocide

September 11, 2014 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Law, Police, Police the Police, Racial Justice

In these lawless and insufferable times we often find those charged with upholding the Constitution mouthing platitudes about the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, their brilliance in establishing checks and balances to ward off tyranny and their commitment to equal justice under the law. Yet while these same Constitution-quoters are bathed in pomp and applause at a podium, others in their charge or under their influence suffer force-feeding, "humanitarian bombings" and incursions—in short, abuses that the Founders would rightly have thrown off. And then some. The time's lawlessness owes to the chief executive and attorney general of the United States publicly acknowledging the commission of crimes—including torture—while giving their predecessors a free pass on their accountability. This is the leitmotif of justice in 21st century America. Witness the wars of aggression, the treasonous manufactured pretense that forced the public's consent for and the implementation of asymmetrical industrial warfare against civilian populations using internationally prohibited weapons. All of it, and no one held to account. Until Ferguson we might have thought the use of those tactics would never be visited upon Americans, on American soil, by other Americans. But this would require omitting certain other Americans: African-Americans and people of color. Black Americans might ask themselves: If we are to emulate our vaunted Founders, what will it take for us to declare for ourselves: But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Declaration of Independence, 1776

UN Committee: US Must Address Racial Disparity In Healthcare

August 30, 2014 Center For Reproductive Rights, www.reproductiverights.org Organize! Health Care, Racial Justice, Racism, United Nations, United States

The United States has failed to make sufficient progress in addressing racial and gender disparities in access to health care, according to new concluding observations (attached) from the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The Committee undertook its review of the U.S.’s record on eliminating racial discrimination in policy and practice to meet the government’s international human rights commitments on August 13-14 in Geneva, Switzerland. Today’s recommendations echo recommendations provided in a new report focused on how racial discrimination in law and practice interferes with women’s fundamental human right to health, with a particular focus on the maternal health of Black women in the South and immigrant women’s access to reproductive health care. The report—titled Reproductive Injustice: Racial and Gender Discrimination in US Health Care—was issued earlier this month by the Center for Reproductive Rights, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. Said Katrina Anderson,senior human rights counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights: “Today the UN Committee rightfully recognized the wide disparities in sexual and reproductive health that exist in the United States for what it is: racial discrimination and a human rights violation that demands government accountability and swift action.

Ferguson Highlights The Black-White Housing Gap

August 22, 2014 Andre F. Shashaty, www.newamericamedia.org Educate! Ferguson, Finance and the Economy, Housing, Poverty, Racial Justice

On the surface, the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., was about local police using deadly force on an unarmed young man. But on a deeper level, it reflected the increasing poverty and economic decline that affects ethnic communities all over America. Despite rosy reports in the media about the end of the national foreclosure crisis and the recession that followed, all is not well in our inner cities and suburbs with largely minority populations, like Ferguson. The foreclosure crisis was hard on many Americans, but it was a disaster for communities of color, including the citizens of Ferguson. Half of Ferguson Homes Underwater In the zip code that encompasses Ferguson, half (49 percent) of homes were underwater in 2013, meaning the home’s market value was below the mortgage’s outstanding balance. This condition (also called “negative equity”) is often a first step toward loan default or foreclosure, according to the recent report, "Underwater America," from the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Occupation And Ethnic Cleansing Of Africa-America

August 22, 2014 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Civil Rights, Ferguson, History, Police, Racial Justice

"Ferguson has already waged a good fight.” There is always context – the larger gestalt of any given time. The sixties are symbolized by Birmingham, Selma, Little Rock. Both racial divides and historic photographs are frozen in black and white of menacing police, German shepherds, water hoses. Whether we add Ferguson, Missouri, to this lexicon of moments defining African-America—and America—will depend largely on whether or not the courage on display in Ferguson is isolated or is conveyed through progressive action to the wider population. The persistence of the Ferguson uprising has the signature of something larger and deeper, with hundreds of citizens giving new meaning to the universal sign of surrender, by lifting their arms—not in capitulation—but in refusing surrender. Chanting, "Don't shoot!" protesters invoke the last words of police-murdered-teenager Michael Brown, executed by a white police officer who hit him with at least six shots—Brown's unarmed hands raised in the air. This time the images come in hi-definition and real time. Sharp against the police officer's pant legs straddling it we can see the almost green cast to the German shepherd's fur and muscled, gloved white arms holding the leash.

Why The Climate Movement Must Stand With Ferguson

August 22, 2014 Deirdre Smith, www.350.org Educate! Climate Change, Ferguson, Racial Justice

It was not hard for me to make the connection between the tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, and the catalyst for my work to stop the climate crisis. It’s all over the news: images of police in military gear pointing war zone weapons at unarmed black people with their hands in the air. These scenes made my heart race in an all-to-familiar way. I was devastated for Mike Brown, his family and the people of Ferguson. Almost immediately, I closed my eyes and remembered the same fear for my own family that pangs many times over a given year. Scene from post Katrina New Orleans Scene from post Katrina New Orleans In the wake of the climate disaster that was Hurricane Katrina almost ten years ago, I saw the same images of police, pointing war-zone weapons at unarmed black people with their hands in the air. In the name of “restoring order,” my family and their community were demonized as “looters” and “dangerous.” When crisis hits, the underlying racism in our society comes to the surface in very clear ways. Climate change is bringing nothing if not clarity to the persistent and overlapping crises of our time. I was outraged by Mike Brown’s murder, and at the same time wondered why people were so surprised; this is sadly a common experience of black life in America.

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