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Racism

Black Passengers Cited, Punished Disproportionately By Transit Enforcement

October 6, 2019 Heidi Groover, Seattle Times. , ,
Seattle, WA - When fare-enforcement officers board a Sound Transit train, they begin at either end and work their way toward the middle. One by one, passengers tap their ORCA cards on handheld devices or show their tickets to prove they’ve paid. The practice is designed to be unbiased, the agency says, a safeguard against potential profiling by officers. But Sound Transit data shows this system is not preventing disproportionate punishment. While 9% of people who ride light rail and Sounder commuter trains are black, 22% of riders caught up in the fare-enforcement system over the last four years were black, according to rider surveys and enforcement data collected by Sound Transit. For black riders, the disparity grows as the punishment gets more severe, from warnings to $124 tickets to misdemeanor theft charges.

Hundreds Of Cops Are In Extremist Facebook Groups. Why Haven’t Their Departments Done Anything About It?

October 3, 2019 By Will Carless, Revealnews.org , ,
Prison guard Geoffery Crosby was a member of more than 50 extremist groups on Facebook, including scores of racist groups dedicated to the Confederacy. Missouri Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Crites was – and still is – posting anti-Muslim rants on his personal Facebook page. In Georgia, despite warnings from his chief, Abbeville police Officer Joel Quinn continues to post a steady stream of conspiracy theories and right-wing memes on Facebook, including recently sharing an anti-Semitic meme.

Politicians Agree: ‘Any White Cop Can Kill A Black Man’

September 27, 2019 Don Fitz, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In 2017 my article, “Any White Cop Can Kill a Black Man at Any Time,” told how St. Louis cop Jason Stockley killed a 24-year-old black man, Anthony Lamar Smith.  Though Stockley claimed he had fired in self defense when Smith pulled a gun on him, evidence showed that he had planted the gun after the killing.  When Stockley was found “not guilty” protests by thousands in St. Louis lasted for months, just as in 2014 when another white cop Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown in neighboring Ferguson. Crises of cops indiscriminately killing black men keep intensifying throughout the area.  In 2018, Stockley sued the City of St. Louis for putting him on trial in a case that could have created a precedent for cops being able to kill without ever being held accountable. 

The US Has “Disappeared” More Than 42,000 Migrants. Where’s the Outrage?

September 20, 2019 By David L. Wilson, Truthout.org , , , , , ,
The most successful of Trump’s anti-immigrant measures up until now — and possibly the most vicious — hasn’t been getting the attention it deserves. In operation since late January, Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), originally called “Remain in Mexico,” allows the U.S. government to push most non-Mexican asylum seekers into Mexico once immigration officials have cleared them to make an asylum claim. As of early September, the number of people forced into Mexico under MPP had reportedly risen to more than 42,000. Immigration authorities say that these migrants are able to pursue their asylum cases while waiting in Mexico, but this is nonsense.

Climate Justice Means Fighting For All Justice

September 14, 2019 UK Youth Climate Coalition, The Ecologist. , , ,
The climate crisis is recognised by the majority of citizens and scientists worldwide to be the result of human activity. The rampant extraction and burning of fossil fuels is center stage, triggering protests and public dialogue. Meanwhile, headlines on atmospheric CO2 stand alongside those on socio-political unrest, human rights, ecosystem destruction or conservation, healthcare, international politics and market dynamics. It is no coincidence that the most prominent narratives feature hierarchy and exertion of power in some form. We will only make lasting headway in tackling climate change if, alongside the need for decarbonisation, we acknowledge that the climate emergency is an issue of wider socio-ecological injustice and violence. The triggers and impacts of climate change are related to or the same as those in other struggles where domination is exerted over an ‘other’. To face up to one, we must face up to them all.

400 Years After Slavery’s Start, No More Band-Aids

September 10, 2019 By Jessicah Pierre, Inequality.org , , ,
Four hundred years ago this month, the first enslaved people from Africa arrived in Virginia. Slavery is often reduced to a crime of America’s long-ago past. But enslaved labor created the backbone for America’s capitalistic economy, allowing it to grow into — and remain — the world’s leading economy today. The effects of this reliance on unpaid African slave labor is still felt in America’s current racial wealth divide. Today the racial wealth divide is greater than it was nearly four decades ago, and trends point to its continued widening.

Racism Is About Power, Not Unpleasant Sentiments

September 8, 2019 Robert Urie, Counterpunch. , , ,
In September of 2011, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis— a man who the best evidence suggested was innocent. On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was murdered by self-appointed community ‘guardian’ George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Then Michael Brown was murdered by the Ferguson police and his lifeless body was left lying in the street for hours. And then Freddie Gray was murdered by the Baltimore police. And on, and on. These references, now long surpassed by crimes equally as brutal and egregious, are used to mark a moment in political history. Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter arose to challenge the power that both motivated and legitimated them. The goal wasn’t to replace one oppressive power with another. It was to end repressive power.

He Spent Years Infiltrating White Supremacist Groups. Here’s What He Has To Say About What’s Going On Now.

September 2, 2019 Joe Sexton, Propublica.org , ,
Late in 2017, ProPublica began writing about a California white supremacist group called the Rise Above Movement. Its members had been involved in violent clashes at rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, and several cities in California. They were proud of their violent handiwork, sharing videos on the internet and recruiting more members. Our first article was titled “Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group’s Campaign of Menace.” More articles followed, and another neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, was exposed.

Hundreds March Against Hate After KKK Appear

September 1, 2019 Lynn Bonner, The News and Observer. , ,
Hundreds of people marched from a cemetery in Hillsborough where enslaved people are buried into downtown to show a united front against racism after Ku Klux Klan members showed up in town last week. Marchers carried anti-racism signs, signs supporting immigrants, rainbow flags, or American flags. The rally featured Native American, black, and white speakers. When a “racism alert” text service for Hillsborough was announced, many in the crowd paused to punch the number into their phones. “We are united together,” Barrett Brown of the Alamance County NAACP told the crowd. “They can’t duck, they can’t dodge. They can’t do anything to keep us divided.” The Hate-Free Schools Coalition and Hillsborough Progressives Taking Action organized the march and rally.

Racial Inequality Is Rooted in Denial of Home And Land Ownership

August 30, 2019 Jacqueline Luqman, Therealnews.com , , ,
The racial wealth gap is finally being discussed seriously in this election cycle and in the country. And some people are even citing the history of slavery, racism, and discrimination that created the racial wealth gap. One of the key factors in the creation of this phenomenon of the racial wealth gap is housing policy. Or more specifically, there is a link between the ability white people have historically had to own property and homes that have accumulated value and created wealth, that they were able to pass down to future generations, that black people were not allowed to enjoy equally.

Study, Fast, Train, Fight: The Roots Of Black August

August 30, 2019 Joe Tache, Liberationschool.org , ,
Exactly 400 years ago, in August 1619, enslaved Africans touched foot in the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States for the first time. The centuries since have seen the development of a racial system more violent, extractive, and deeply entrenched than any other in human history. Yet where there is oppression, there is also resistance. Since 1619, Black radicals and revolutionaries have taken bold collective action in pursuit of their freedom, threatening the fragile foundations of exploitation upon which the United States is built.

400 Years After Slavery’s Start, No More Band-Aids

August 24, 2019 By Jessicah Pierre, Otherwords.org , ,
Four hundred years ago this month, the first enslaved people from Africa arrived in Virginia. Slavery is often reduced to a crime of America’s long-ago past. But enslaved labor created the backbone for America’s capitalistic economy, allowing it to grow into — and remain — the world’s leading economy today. The effects of this reliance on unpaid African slave labor is still felt in America’s current racial wealth divide. Today the racial wealth divide is greater than it was nearly four decades ago, and trends point to its continued widening.

The Red Summer Of 1919, Explained

August 18, 2019 Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Some of America’s most notorious racist riots happened 100 years ago this summer. Confronting a national epidemic of white mob violence, 1919 was a time when black people in the United States defended themselves, fought back, and demanded full citizenship through thousands of acts of courage, small and large, individual and collective. But pull a standard U.S. history textbook off the shelf and you’re unlikely to find more than a paragraph on the 1919 riots. What you do find downplays both racism and black resistance while distorting facts in a dangerous “both sides” framing. These textbooks render students stupid about white supremacy and bereft of examples from those who defied it. At this moment of revived racist backlash, all of us need to learn the lessons of 1919.

Brazil: Indigenous Women Unite In Historic March

August 15, 2019 Sophie Pinchetti, Amazon Frontlines. , , ,
In a great demonstration of feminine unity and strength as part of the indigenous movement across the Amazon, thousands of indigenous women have mobilized in Brazil’s capital city since yesterday as part of the country’s first Indigenous Women’s March. Carrying banners with the slogan “Territory: our body, our spirit,”, women have taken to the streets to make their voices heard and to denounce the policies of Brazil’s far-right president Bolsonaro, which have set the stage for escalating violations of indigenous rights, racism, violence and the most alarming Amazon deforestation rates in recent memory. Marching side by side with women from over 110 ethnic groups in Brazil, indigenous women leaders from other regions of the Amazon have also joined in the mobilization to express their solidarity and to share their struggles in defence of their ancestral rainforest homelands...

To Understand The El Paso Massacre, Look To The Long Legacy Of Anti-Mexican Violence At The Border

August 13, 2019 David Dorado Romo, Texasobserver.org , , ,
In the immediate aftermath of the El Paso shooting—the largest massacre of Latinx people in the history of the United States—politicians of all stripes stood before the cameras and gave their diagnosis of what just happened. They sounded like the proverbial blind men who touched one part of the elephant and confused the different fragments for the whole. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, a Republican who once praised the “freedom fence” for keeping out “riff raff,” emphasized that the atrocity was committed by an outsider.
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