Racial Justice

Opal Tometi On Building A Transnational Movement For Black Lives

August 6, 2015 Interview with Opal Tometi Laura Flanders, www.truth-out.org Strategize! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Power, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Police Brutrality, Racial Justice, Worker Rights and Jobs

Interview with Opal Tometi by Laura Flanders in Truthout - Take us back a couple of years. Were you conscious of the fact, in 2013 when you saw that Black Lives Matter post from Alicia, that here was an opportunity to connect your issue, the issue of immigrants' rights and justice, to the Black justice movement in this country? Was it a conscious thing? It was absolutely conscious. When I reached out to Alicia to say, "I really think we need an online platform to connect our groups and to connect our communities," I had in mind that it was really important that we establish a really broad notion of who is Black America, these days. A really broad notion to ensure that this platform was big enough for the communities like the ones that I represent (my parents are Nigerian immigrants; the communities that I work with are Afro-Latinos and Caribbean and so on) and that they could also have their concerns heard. It was really important to us to ensure that it wasn't just a movement about police killing Black people but it was also about structural racism and justice for all Black people.

The 100 Year Occupation of Haiti By The United States

August 3, 2015 Mark Schuller, www.nacla.org Educate! Colonialism, Haiti, Imperialism, Occupation, Racial Justice, usa

By Mark Schuller in NACLA - This Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of the commencement of the U.S. Occupation of Haiti. On July 28, 1915, U.S. Marines landed on the shores of Haiti, occupying the country for 19 years. College campuses, professional associations, social movements, and political parties are marking the occasion with a series of reflections and demonstrations. Several have argued that the U.S. has never stopped occupying Haiti, even as military boots left in 1934. Some activists are using the word “humanitarian occupation” to describe the current situation, denouncing the loss of sovereignty, as U.N. troops have been patrolling the country for over 11 years. While the phrase “humanitarian occupation” may seem distasteful and even ungrateful to some considering the generosity of the response to the January 12, 2010 earthquake, there are several parallels between the contemporary aid regime and the U.S. Marine administration.

LAPD Pressed Gun To Chest & Shot Unarmed Homeless Man

July 31, 2015 Jeff Sharlet, www.gq.com Educate! Africa, LAPD, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Jeff Sharlet un GQ - Five months after the March 1 Los Angeles police killing of an unarmed black man named Charly "Africa" Keunang—a story I reported in-depth for the July issue of GQ—the Los Angeles coroner has finally released the results of its autopsy. They are profoundly disturbing. Two of the six bullets that killed Charly entered his body through what are called "contact gunshot wounds"—which means the muzzle of the officer's gun was pressed directly against Charly's body. Like a slaughterhouse killing. I'd already reviewed a less-detailed autopsy report commissioned privately by Keunang's family and had access to leaked body-cam videos and recordings of internal police interviews with several of the officers involved. Even so, the autopsy report is startling. There's a moment in the body-cam video when it appears to me that Officer Francisco Martinez has his hand on Charly's torso—Charly is on his back after having been wrestled down and tased—with his gun pointed at the body.

The Making Of The American Police State

July 30, 2015 Christian Parenti, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! History, Labor, police brutality, Police State, Racial Justice

By Christian Parenti in Information Clearinghouse - How did we get here? The numbers are chilling: 2.2 million people behind bars, another 4.7 million on parole or probation. Even small-town cops are armed like soldiers, with a thoroughly militarized southern border. The common leftist explanation for this is “the prison-industrial complex,” suggesting that the buildup is largely privatized and has been driven by parasitic corporate lobbying. But the facts don’t support an economistic explanation. Private prisons only control 8 percent of prison beds. Nor do for-profit corporations use much prison labor. Nor even are guards’ unions, though strong in a few important states, driving the buildup. The vast majority of the American police state remains firmly within the public sector.

Activists In Ferguson Broaden Scope, Unveil ‘Power Behind The Police’

July 27, 2015 Sarah Jaffee, www.rollingstone.com Strategize! Economic Justice, Inequality, police brutality, Racial Justice, Wars and Militarism

By Sarah Jaffee in Rolling Stone - Roz Brown, one of the activists who spoke at the protests, tells Rolling Stone that racism is "embedded in the infrastructures" of St. Louis, from business to education to the judicial system. She points to the way police lined up to protect business headquarters when the protesters arrived last week — the same police who, in Ferguson, stared down protesters behind armored vehicles and riot shields. Unequal systems reinforce each other, Brown says. Frankie Edwards says he's troubled that these executives make a lot of money, but don't put enough of it back into the community in ways that help people like him: young black men who are constantly harassed by police. To him, they have a responsibility to build a city that works for everyone.

50 Shades Of Racism

July 22, 2015 Starhawk, www.starhawk.org Educate! Racial Justice

By Starhawk - The Inuit, I’ve heard, have fifty different words for snow, presumably because they have a lot of it! When something is omnipresent, we need language to help us distinguish the subtleties. For that same reason, we need more than one term for talking about racism, which is as omnipresent in the US as snow in the pre-global-warming Arctic. Clarity about the subtle distinctions and forms that racism takes can aid the effectiveness of all who are working for a world of justice. Racism, and its cousins sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism and all the rest of the family share many similarities in the way they function. In this essay I will focus primarily on race.

Unapologetic Black Anger Can Change The World For The Better

July 21, 2015 Chauncey de Vega, www.alternet.org Strategize! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Law, Mass Incarceration, police brutality, Racial Justice, White Supremacy

By Chauncey de Vega in Alternet - At the Socialism 2015 conference, Martinez Sutton, the brother of Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old black woman killed by an offduty white Chicago cop who recklessly fired five shots into a crowd of people because he was supposedly upset that they were playing loud music, shared his story of anger and pain at a legal system that twisted justice in order to protect one of its enforcers of death and destruction on the black and brown body, as well as the poor of all colors. Sutton told the audience that he and his family will not forgive the cop who killed his sister. He called out how this expectation that black and brown folks should always forgive those who malign and hurt us is an absurdity.

#BlackLivesMatter Convening Responds To State Of Emergency

July 21, 2015 Ashley Curtin, www.bullhorn.nationofchange.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), police brutality, Racial Justice, State of Emergency

By Ashley Curtin in Nation of Change - As the movement continues to grow, the freedom fighters will meet in Cleveland for the first ever Movement for Black Lives Convening to create a collective mission through months of action. The conference will take place from July 24-26 to "build a national community dedicated to permanently changing the country." “We have established a decentralized, but coordinated, movement that has already changed the discussion about racial justice and police violence; and now it is important that we gather, continue the discussion and build alignment,” Maurice Mitchell, organizer with the Movement for Black Lives, said in a press release “At the Convening we hope to see a collective vision emerge to build meaningful power and agency in the Black community.”

Equality Is Far Away: Conversation W/ Authors Of “Queer (In)Justice”

July 20, 2015 Joe Macaré, www.truth-out.org Educate! Book Review, Economic Justice, LGBTQ, Queer, Racial Justice

By Joe Macaré in Truthout - LGBTQ leadership has also had an impact on broader campaigns and movements around police accountability at both the national and local levels. It's well known that both #BlackLivesMatter and BYP 100 were launched by queer Black womenwho have consistently insisted on a framework for understanding state violence and anti-Black racism that centers on the lives of Black women, trans and queer folks. Of course, that insistence hasn't always been heeded - but Black queer women on the front lines in Ferguson, in the leadership of BYP 100, and in chapters of #BlackLivesMatter and BYP 100 across the country have made it clear that this is a nonnegotiable part of the current movement and moment.

New Video Shows Police Fatally Shooting Unarmed Latino Man

July 17, 2015 Natasha Noman, www.mic.com Educate! California, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Natasha Noman in Mic - A federal court judge Tuesday mandated the release of police-recorded video showing three officers shooting and killing unarmed Latino man Ricardo Diaz Zeferino, 35, in June 2013 in Gardena, California. From the video, it appears police shot Diaz Zeferino when he removed his baseball cap. Diaz Zeferino had apparently been trying to help his brother find his stolen bike, though the officers had reportedly stopped him for suspicion of stealing it. Diaz Zeferino's brother reported his bicycle stolen outside a CVS earlier that night, but the dispatcher mistakenly described it as a robbery, with connotations of violence, as opposed to a theft.

Engaging The Powers: The Promise Of A New Civil Rights Era

July 17, 2015 Troy Jackson, www.sojo.net Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Civil Rights, Fight for 15, Occupy, Racial Justice

By Troy Jackson in Sojo - When Occupy Wall Street emerged in the fall of 2011 many media personalities and social commentators critiqued the lack of a clear and concise list of demands from the nascent movement. Months later, when the only thing blanketing Zuccotti Park in New York City was freshly fallen snow, I was tempted to write off Occupy as an idealistic moment that produced little lasting change. As we move toward the 4-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, my assessment has changed. Thanks in part to the work of Occupy, America is having a new debate around increasing the minimum wage, restaurant workers are waging their “fight for 15,” and even Wal-Mart recently announced wage increases for employees. We are having new public policy debates around what it means to be part of a moral economy.

Eric Garner Family Reaches Settlement Of $5.9 Million

July 13, 2015 Kelly McLaughlin, www.dailymail.co.uk Educate! Criminal Justice, Eric Garner, NYC, NYPD, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Kelly McLaughlin in The Daily Mail - As the family of Eric Garner awaits closure a year after the father-of-six's untimely death, the police officer who put the 43-year-old in a fatal chokehold said that he can't wait to get back on the job. Though he's been stripped of his gun and is receiving death threats, 30-year-old Daniel Pantaleo wants to keep working for the New York City police, his lawyer said. 'The unbelievable part is this has not soured him one bit on doing law enforcement,' his lawyer Stuart London told the New York Daily News. 'It hasn't diminished his desire to help the citizens of this city.' Garner's widow, however, is enraged that there is even a possibility Pantaleo could get his job back.

I Don’t Discuss Racism With White People

July 13, 2015 John Metta, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Civil Rights, Racial Justice, Racism

By John Metta in The Huffington Post - I don't talk about race with White people. To illustrate why, I'll tell a story: It was probably about 15 years ago when a conversation took place between my aunt, who is White and lives in New York State, and my sister, who is Black and lives in North Carolina. This conversation can be distilled to a single sentence, said by my Black sister: "The only difference between people in The North and people in The South is that down here, at least people are honest about being racist." There was a lot more to that conversation, obviously, but I suggest that it can be distilled into that one sentence because it has been, by my White aunt. Over a decade later, this sentence is still what she talks about. It has become the single most important aspect of my aunt's relationship with my Black family.

NYC Doesn’t Fly Confederate Flags, Still A Shrine To Slaveowners

July 8, 2015 Nathan Tempey, www.gothamist.com Educate! History, New York City (NYC), Racial Justice, Racism

By Nathan Tempey in Gothamist - In the two weeks since white supremacist Dylann Roof allegedly murdered nine people in a South Carolina church, activists, politicians, and everyday anti-racists have taken up the cause of removing Confederate flags and monuments from the public landscape. The campaign is a noble one—the flag was, after all, created explicitly for Southern white people to start a war to preserve slavery, and Roof posed with it in photos before reportedly trying to incite his own race war—but for some liberal New Yorkers, it has served as a self-congratulatory reminder that the South is a uniquely racist place with a disgusting past that has nothing to do with them.

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