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#Post#: 1726--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 22, 2014, 1:54 pm
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--- Quote from: agelbert link ---
>
> [move]I had to come back! This is HUGE! This is the same as
the Buddhist priests in Viet Nam that used to light themselves
on fire to protest the war! And it's on VIDEO![/move]
>
>
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-P54MZVxMU&feature=player_embedded
>
> This next video is a compilation of store cameras which
captured the apparent act of taking the two cans of soda:
>
>
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyjMXk00gMk&feature=player_embedded
>
> Another police killing of an African American has occurred.
HTML http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000370273/polls_Smiley_Angry_256x256_3451_356175_answer_4_xlarge.png<br
/> Caught on camera by a bystander (see video below the fold),
apparently the man, identified as Kajieme Powell, a 25-year-old,
had gone into a convenience market, deliberately took two cans
of soda, walked out without paying for them, proceeded to set
the two cans symbolically down on the sidewalk, and waited for
police to come, as if having planned and predicted the entire
sequence of events.
>
> The police soon arrived, and Powell approached them, telling
them to shoot him. And without the slightest hesitation, they
did, firing nine shots in rapid succession into Powell at close
range, several of the shots occurring after he had already
fallen to the ground. Then they had the audacity [i]to cuff him
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/gaah.gif,
ridiculously acting as
if a man with nine bullets in him, who for all the world looked
dead or unconscious on the ground, was still a threat[/i]. It
was all over within seconds of their arrival on the scene.
HTML http://images.zaazu.com/img/Incredible-Hulk-animated-animation-male-smiley-emoticon-000342-large.gif
>
> Powell's actions looked to me to be a deliberate, symbolic
protest of police,
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/47b20s0.gif<br
/>clearly intended to induce a replay similar to the events
which
had recently occurred with Michael Brown, who had been shot
while surrendering with arms raised, allegedly minutes after
taking cigarillos from a nearby store. And the police behaved
exactly as Powell expected they would.
>
> Powell allegedly had a knife, although one is not visible in
the video, and his arms were not raised in aggression, and he
was not brandishing any weapon in a threatening manner. They
could have easily backed away 30 paces, deescalated the
situation, talked him down. They could have tasered him (or
maybe not), or any other number of nonlethal methods. No, in my
mind this was murder. We expect more from police. We expect
professionalism. We expect them to think before acting.
>
> The police, in an earlier press conference, before the
revealing video had been released, had clearly lied about Powell
having allegedly threatened the shooting officers with a knife
in an "overhand grip". In the video, Powell's hands are at his
side, with no overhand motion. No object is visible in his
hands. Powell seemed to be expecting to be shot with minimal
effort, and his motions were slow and non-threatening, simply
moving toward the police, reflecting what he thought would be
sufficient to provoke an overreaction by the police.
>
> The striking implications of the new police killing seems to
be that cops in the St. Louis area are so reliably prone to
shoot Black people with the slightest provocation, that anyone
can elicit a reenactment of the Brown incident by simply
arranging the same pieces on the chessboard all over again. And
the police obligingly cooperated by willingly playing their
part, firing nine lead bullets into Powell, completing the
events as if a planned theatrical drama, as if performance art.
But sadly, this is not art, but tragically real, and now another
man is dead from the eagerness of police to kill anyone who
presents even the slightest opportunity.
>
> I've read that a tweet apparently claims Powell's mother
recently died. Others say he was acting erratically, and assume
he was disturbed. Ezra Klein remarked that he might be mentally
ill. Perhaps all this is true. But why is he cast this way
before this is known as a fact? Why wouldn't Blacks be
understandably driven to extreme levels of distress over what
has occurred, over how they have been treated over the many
decades which have led to these recent atrocities? Why isn't it
immediately perceived as a statement of protest of the peril
that Blacks live with on a daily basis? Was he mentally ill, or
was he understandably distraught over how Blacks are treated in
his community? Or was it, perhaps, a combination of these
possibilities?
>
> Whatever else this is, it is obviously a protest against the
police. He didn't have to end his life using this particular
avenue. He could have chosen any one of other methods to commit
suicide, if that was his intent. Powell meant this to be a
statement. Let's not allow his act to be in vain.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/301.gif
>
> In my mind, regardless of the aggregate of motivations that
were in Powell's mind, it [b]is a potent commentary on how easy
any black youth can be murdered in cold blood,[/b] on any street
corner, and so reliably predictable that it was easily
orchestrated by a person who was willing to end his life to make
the point.
>
> Is this any different, really, than Buddhist monks setting
themselves on fire to protest war? Few would debase their noble
sacrifice as mental illness. Powell's act, whatever else it may
prove to be, is powerful symbolism of Black experience, of a
police force gone wild, and the deeply systemic racism that
exists in institutions of authority in the United States.
>
> I fear for the safety of people in the St. Louis area tonight
and in the days to come. I really don't know what else to say.
This has left me speechless. I have no words.
>
> Missouri state senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, during an
interview with Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now, commented
about Black young men, and how outraged they are about the
shooting of Brown:
>
> "A lot of young men, they're willing to die for justice".
> {...}
> "On Sunday night, right after the killing of Michael Brown, I
was between police officers and people who were willing to die."
>
> St. Louis Police Release Video Of Kajieme Powell Killing That
Appears At Odds With Their Story
> [N]ewly released cell phone footage undermines the statement,
showing Powell approaching the cops, but not coming as close as
was reported, with his hands at his side. The officers began
shooting within 15 seconds of their arrival, hitting Powell with
a barrage of bullets.
>
> The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department released the
video and 911 calls, telling St. Louis Public Radio that it
plans to act transparently.
>
> The shooting death occurred less than four miles from where
Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in the suburb
of Ferguson on Aug. 9.
>
>
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/21/1323407/-Apparently-if-you-ask-St-Louis-cops-to-kill-you-they-will-This-is-a-story-of-cops-gone-wild
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/21/1323407/-Apparently-if-you-ask-St-Louis-cops-to-kill-you-they-will-This-is-a-story-of-cops-gone-wild
>
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>
--- End Quote ---
#Post#: 1732--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 23, 2014, 1:50 pm
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Oakland Protesters Hold Up Mirrors To Police Officers In
Ferguson
HTML http://www.popularresistance.org/oakland-protesters-hold-up-mirrors-to-police-officers-in-ferguson/
HTML http://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Screen-Shot-2014-08-23-at-10.13.19-AM.png
Russia’s Humanitarian ‘Invasion’
HTML http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/23/russias-humanitarian-invasion/
US Top Brass: Striking Syria Back On The Table
HTML http://www.mintpressnews.com/us-top-brass-striking-syria-back-table/195723/?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=us-top-brass-striking-syria-back-table
How the Ultra-Rich .01% Have Sucked Up Even More of America's
Wealth Than You Think
HTML http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-ultra-rich-01-have-sucked-even-more-americas-wealth-you-think
HTML http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Joseph-Goebbels-and-Dick-Cheney.jpg
#Post#: 1733--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 23, 2014, 2:25 pm
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--- Quote from: Surly1 link ---
>
>
[center][img]
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>
--- End Quote ---
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/>
#Post#: 1741--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 24, 2014, 4:49 pm
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Hands Up, Don't Shoot: Ferguson on Center Stage
by Malik Miah
August 19, 2014
Two Americas. Two realities. Race matters. Us against them.
The mass media have swarmed all over Ferguson, Missouri for one
reason: The Black community went into the streets after the
police murder of Michael Brown, and refused orders to leave.
They have inspired solidarity actions taking place all over the
United States and internationally, including Latino, Asian and
white young people along with African Americans.
“Hands Up, Don't Shoot” spread across the country. It reflects a
reality for African American boys and men when in contact with
the police. There is genuine fear that any wrong move could lead
to your death. Racial profiling is commonplace in cities small
and big. Accountability for cop violence is not.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-240814172718.jpeg
Howard University students show solidarity with Ferguson.
A majority of white people, on the other hand, especially in
middle or upper class communities, rarely experience cop
brutality. Police serve and protect them. So they believe
African Americans must be at fault, not the police.
Whites in Ferguson, Missouri, a six-square mile town of 21,000
people, don’t see discrimination or racism; they see Black
people rioting in their neighborhoods. Popular culture
propagates fear of African American men. Guns are flying off the
shelves at gun shops as whites armed themselves in the St Louis
area. Yet whites, 30 percent of the population, control the
power structures and police. Black people have no political
power.
Ferguson joins a long list of places where the lives of African
Americans have been taken away by police violence. The
dehumanization and disrespect that Black men suffer by society
reflects a broad culture of institutional racism. It is not an
accident that a white cop feels threatened by an unarmed 18 year
old teenager.
The 28-year-old cop, Darren Wilson, was hidden away as the
community erupted for five days. The 53-person militarized
police force (only three are Black in a city with a 69 percent
African American population) used armored vehicles and weapons
more appropriate in Iraq and Afghanistan. All wore camouflage
fatigues.
The police sought to control the truth by presenting “Big Mike”
Brown and the community as violent and out of control to gain
white support and to justify massive military type force. The
occupied community is presented as subhumans who are throwing
rocks and Molotov cocktails at cops. Police in Ferguson and St.
Louis County were indoctrinated with this dehumanizing and
disrespectful view of the Black community.
The Murder and Aftermath
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Michael Brown
On August 10, the cop instructed Brown and his friend to move
from the street to the sidewalk. They didn’t do so and a
struggle ensured, the specifics of which are contested. Brown
was then shot and killed with hands turned up some 35 feet away
from the patrol car. His body was left on the street for four
hours.
Between August 12 and 13, police officers fired tear gas and
rubber bullets at lines of angry but peaceful protesters, many
of whom were in their own front yards when attacked. Reporters
were detained and attacked including from the Huffington Post
and Washington Post.
Aljazeera America reporters fa2miliar with war zones in the
Middle East were hit by tear gas and shot at with rubber bullets
by police SWAT Team. CNN cameras filmed an officer addressing a
group of protesters by saying "Bring it, you fucking animals,
bring it.” Weapons for war are now common among many police
departments. This militarization is not to fight terrorists but
to control the common citizens of these communities — to put
down civil unrest.
The structural racism of U.S. society means that police
departments meet their quotas of arrests by going after the
“others” who are African Americans, Latinos, and Arabs and all
Muslims. Young Black men are profiled by cops, arrested and
prosecuted by a justice system that is far from color blind. A
common comment heard in
Ferguson’s Black neighborhoods: “we demand respect and justice.”
Once the cop’s name was released on August 15, the police spun a
new reason why Michael Brown was murdered. The story changed to
a shoplifting incident a few blocks away, allegedly by Brown, at
a convenience store--yet the police chief admitted that Wilson
did not know that Brown was a suspect when he shot him.
Blame the Victim
The alleged robbery was a classic tactic of misdirect (a
“smokescreen”) of blaming the victim for his own death, said
Brown’s family. Many whites had already assumed Brown was a
criminal. What torpedoed the planned coverup were the eyewitness
accounts. It put politicians on the spot, including the
Democratic Governor Nixon.
The cops had to retreat. Nixon appointed an African American
captain, Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, a native of
Ferguson, to be the public face of the police force.
Later the Governor imposed a curfew after some protesters
started looting stores August 15. Community leaders condemned
the action of a few who did not reflect the majority support for
defiant but peaceful protests. The provocative actions, many by
unknown people coming into Ferguson, played into the cop’s
assertion that they had to use heavy force to keep order.
The insensitive response by the police and white politicians
exposes what every African Americans knows all too well: Black
people live in a racially divided country where different rules
apply. It recalls the 1960s when African Americans were treated
as less than human, cops were seen as an occupying force, and
demands for “community control of the police” became popular.
Militarization of Police Forces
Glenn Greenwald, the investigative journalist who reported to
the world on whistle blower Edward Snowden’s disclosures of
massive U.S. spying, discussed in an August 14 article for the
internet-based Intercept news service the origins of the
militarization of city police forces:
The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a
serious menace about which a small number of people have been
loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction. In
a 2007 paper on “the blurring distinctions between the police
and military institutions and between war and law enforcement,”
the criminal justice professor Peter Kraska defined “police
militarization” as ‘the process whereby civilian police
increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the
tenets of militarism and the military model...
As is true for most issues of excessive and abusive policing,
police militarization is overwhelmingly and disproportionately
directed at minorities and poor communities, ensuring that the
problem largely festers in the dark. Americans are now so
accustomed to seeing police officers decked in camouflage and
Robocop-style costumes, riding in armored vehicles and carrying
automatic weapons first introduced during the U.S. occupation of
Baghdad, that it has become normalized. But those who bear the
brunt of this transformation are those who lack loud megaphones;
their complaints of the inevitable and severe abuse that
results.
If anything positive can come from the Ferguson travesties, it
is that the completely out-of-control orgy of domestic police
militarization receives long-overdue attention and reining in.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-240814172824.jpeg
Militarized police in Ferguson, MO.
New York Times reporters Julie Bosman and Matt Apuzzo in an
August 14 article explained,
”Department of Homeland Security grant money paid for the
$360,000 Bearcat armored truck on patrol in Ferguson,” said Nick
Gragnani, executive director of St. Louis Area Regional Response
System, which administers such grants for the St. Louis area.
Since 2003, the group has spent $9.4 million on equipment for
the police in St. Louis County. That includes $3.6 million for
two helicopters, plus the Bearcat, other vehicles and night
vision equipment. Most of the body armor worn by officers
responding to the Ferguson protests was paid for with federal
money, Mr. Gragnani said.
“The focus is terrorism, but it’s allowed to do a crossover for
other types of responses,” he said. “It’s for any type of civil
unrest. We went by the grant guidance. There was no restriction
put on that by the federal government.”
While the major Homeland Security grants do not pay for weapons,
Justice Department grants do. That includes rubber bullets and
tear gas, which the police use to disperse crowds. A Justice
Department report last year said nearly 400 local police
departments and more than 100 state agencies had bought such
less-lethal weapons using Justice Department grant money.
The militarization of police is also related to the “war on
drugs” that has brought havoc and death to U.S. cities and to
Mexico and Central American nations where youth are fleeing for
their lives to the southern U.S. border, and contributed to mass
African American incarceration.
The important point here is that the social composition of the
police force isn’t what causes militarization. While it’s a
factor as seen in Ferguson where few cops are African American,
the bigger problems are policies and training. Racial profiling
and targeting of minority communities are taught to all
cops--white, Black, Latino, or Asian-American. New York City,
for example, has a police force that is majority people of
color, yet where a Black man was choked to death on Staten
Island, and stop-and-frisk remains a major issue for people of
color.
Mass Public Action
What happens next depends on public protests and pressure on the
county, state, and federal governments. President Obama and
Attorney General Holder have instructed the FBI to investigate
the Brown killing. Obama failed as usual to mention the
underlying racial divisions and tensions in Ferguson. He implied
both the community and cops need to do better! It’s up to the
district prosecutor and closed-door grand jury to decide if the
cop who killed Brown is even arrested and prosecuted. So far
he’s on paid desk duty.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-240814172855.jpeg
Demonstrators in Ferguson, MO, on August 17, 2014.
The country remains divided by race even as some progress has
been made for educated African Americans. Ferguson shows that we
don’t live in “post-racial’ society as many hoped with the
election of the first African American president. Obama’s
refusal to take on institutional racism head-on is a reason why
whites opposed to full racial equality have been on the
offensive since his election in 2008. If anything, Barack
Obama’s election told whites (at least a sizable minority) to
circle the wagons and make sure power is not taken from them.
That’s why the hard core of rightwingers and racists in the Tea
Party rally around white nationalists who hate Obama and civil
rights. It is why voting rights laws are being limited in the
Old South and Republican controlled states. The events in
Ferguson, Los Angeles, Staten Island, and many other cities show
that racially targeted police violence is widespread.
The history of Black people being shot and killed by cops (an
average of at least two per week) gets little notice unless
video phones are present. Only when African Americans are
treated as people and human beings will they respond in kind.
Working class and poor African Americans are still waiting for
that to happen.
“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” is a demand for fairness and dignity. It
is matter of life or death for Black boys and men.
It is a universal slogan for all victims of state-sanctioned
violence and the oppressed from Ferguson to Gaza.
Malik Miah is an editor of Against The Current and lived in
Detroit, Michigan, during the 1967 rebellion after a police
raid. The National Guard was called in and some 43 people died
in five days in one of the most destructive riots in U.S.
history. The surge of “white fear” and “white flight” from
Detroit to the suburbs can be dated to these events, and
subsequently the election of the city’s first Black mayor
Coleman Young in 1973.
HTML http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4227
#Post#: 1742--------------------------------------------------
Judge rules for the People!
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 24, 2014, 5:13 pm
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Judge rules for the People! Clerk files lawsuit AGAINST herself!
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A Berrien County Judge ruled the Benton Harbor recall election
can be held. This is a major victory for the people against
fascist county and city governments, directed by the Whirlpool
Corporation.
County elections administrator Carolyn Toliver removed more than
100 good petition signatures to attempt to prevent the mayoral
recall election organized by Benton Harbor and Benton Township
residents.
What you're about to read is absolutely true. :o
County clerk Sharon Tyler filed a lawsuit against herself in
order to prevent the recall election.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191329.bmp<br
/> Whirlpool most likely directed her to take this action,
probably a first in US election history. Whirlpool was
desperate because their man Hightower was losing by a large
margin in the absentee ballots. (Those were sent out
before the powers-that-be called off the election.)
The Benton Harbor mayoral recall election will now be held on
Nov. 4, 2014.
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The order was issued Tuesday, August 12 by Judge John Dewane
after the Aug. 7 civil trial.
The decision to schedule the election hinged on Judge DeWane's
decision that the practice of the Berrien County Clerk's office
to disqualify both signatures, if a person signed a recall
petition twice, violates First Amendment free speech rights.
This is a tremendous victory for people all around the country,
with all the corruption not just in Benton Harbor.
Rev. Edward Pinkney
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Burn Baby Burn
Burn all NAACP MEMBERSHIPS
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Background Information:
Framing Reverend Pinkney
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#Post#: 1744--------------------------------------------------
White Guy talks about Stuff White People Do
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 24, 2014, 6:24 pm
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Mistake non-white people for service workers
More and more frequently these days, white people are claiming
that they don't see race -- that they're "colorblind."
"You know something?" they might say to a black person, "I never
even notice that you're black!" ::)
Which actually says a lot about black people, or rather, the
supposedly white person's denigrating conceptions about black
people. And on top of that nonsense, this black person is often
someone whom the white person otherwise holds up proudly as a
"black friend."
When white people claim that they're colorblind, what they're
actually demonstrating is that they're delusional. What they
fail to recognize is something about themselves, which is that
they do notice the color of non-white people, and that it's
often the very first thing they notice.
One way white people sometimes demonstrate that they're the
opposite of colorblind is by mistaking non-white people for
service workers. I've been in department stores, for instance,
and seen white shoppers ask black shoppers where to find
something.
Being mistaken by white people for a service worker also happens
to other non-white people. I've also seen apparently Hispanic
customers stopped as they're walking through restaurants by a
white person, who wants to know where the restrooms are.
Chinese American journalist Thomas Lee recently wrote about his
experience with this form of racism, when he went to interview a
company president:
I arrived a few minutes before noon and told the receptionist at
the front desk I was looking for the president's executive
assistant.
"Oh. Are you delivering food?" she asked.
Oh, no, she didn't!
It wasn't the first time I was mistaken for a Chinese food
delivery guy. In college, I had arrived at my girlfriend's dorm
with dinner and the front desk dude assumed just that. I was
embarrassed, to be sure, but let it go. That's the burden of
being a Chinese-American with a penchant for baseball caps,
jeans and takeout food.
Yet the receptionist's inquiry stunned me. I was wearing a dress
shirt, black slacks and black dress shoes. True, I was sporting
a backpack and sunglasses, but how many food delivery guys whip
out kung pao chicken from a Gap bag?
After realizing her error, the receptionist offered a rather
clumsy explanation. "I only asked because [the executive
assistant] always orders food," she said.
Nice try, lady. . . . At least she didn't speak extra slowly and
offer a tip.
Derald Wing Sue, a psychologist, labels such incidents "racial
microaggressions" (he adopted the term from an earlier
psychiatrist, Chester M. Pierce). Sue defines these behaviors as
"everyday insults, indignities and demeaning messages sent to
people of color by well-intentioned white people who are unaware
of the hidden messages being sent."
Ordinary, well-intentioned white people almost never want the
word "racism" associated with themselves. In this post, I just
labeled a common white tendency -- to mistake non-white people
for service workers -- a form of racism, and I'm committed to
that description.
White people usually think that "racists" are the ones who
harbor racist thoughts and feelings, and thus the ones who
commit "racist" acts. However, as Derald Wing Sue suggests,
there are many, many ways in which white people can act with
unwarranted and unconscious aggression toward people of color,
and thus, act in "racist" ways. Mistaking non-white people for
service workers is but one common example.
Another common example is something that sometimes happens after
such incidents, when the non-white victims explain what just
happened to another white person. After describing his racist
encounter with a white receptionist, Thomas Lee writes about his
subsequent encounters with, I assume, other white people:
I told the story to friends and colleagues. I expected them to
laugh and sympathize. Instead they offered several explanations,
everything except what seemed obvious to me.
It was my backpack. It was my sunglasses. It was my age. It was
Elvis.
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The backpack defense seemed particularly popular so I considered
it. OK, maybe -- maybe -- I could buy that. But the receptionist
didn't ask if I was delivering just anything. She asked if I was
delivering food. Not documents, not packages, not flowers, but
food.
Worse yet, people offered me tips on how I could avoid this
problem in the future, as if I was somehow to blame. :evil4:
Wear a jacket. Carry a briefcase. Walk differently.
Walk differently? I wasn't aware that I walked like a
deliveryman. I'm not even sure how a deliveryman walks. Just to
be safe, maybe I should don a tuxedo, speak in a faux British
accent and goose-step my way to the front desk.
As I've noted before, white people often feel a need to explain
away racist incidents, to argue that they're not racist. This
common denial of a non-white person's point of view -- which
tends to be an informed and experienced point of view -- is
itself another racial microaggression.
According to an article on Derald Sue Winger's work in Monitor
on Psychology, he and his colleagues have been developing a
taxonomy of racial microaggressions, in order "to help people of
color understand what is going on and perhaps to educate white
people as well" (other examples are listed in this PDF table and
graph based on Sue's work):
"It's a monumental task to get white people to realize that they
are delivering microaggressions, because it's scary to them," he
contends. "It assails their self-image of being good, moral,
decent human beings to realize that maybe at an unconscious
level they have biased thoughts, attitudes and feelings that
harm people of color."
I find it interesting (as well as saddening -- and thus
inspiring) that white people are commonly reluctant to recognize
not only their own actions as racist, but even those of other
white people. This second reluctance is what they're displaying
when, after hearing that someone white mistook a non-white
person for a service worker, they struggle to come up with other
explanations for what happened. Even though it wasn't they
themselves who made the mistake, but instead someone they don't
even know!
I can only conclude here with something that I've said before.
Although white people commonly think that their racial status
has little to do with who they are and how they act, they are
nevertheless trained to be, and act, "white." If they don't
understand that about themselves, and then work to counteract
it, they will sometimes commit acts of racism.
Actually, even if they do come to understand that about
themselves, they'll still commit racist acts at times. But, at
least they'll inflict their common and largely unconscious white
tendencies on fewer non-white people, and they'll better
understand themselves, and the power that they often
unconsciously wield. And if they then interact and work with
non-white people and treat them more equally, but also as people
with differing perspectives and understandings, they'll be
countering racism at both individual and systemic, institutional
levels.
HTML http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/08/mistake-non-white-people-for-service.html?showComment=1376693788436#comment-c1387619786799460820
HTML http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/08/mistake-non-white-people-for-service.html?showComment=1376693788436#comment-c1387619786799460820
#Post#: 1749--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 25, 2014, 2:07 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Surly1 link ---
>
> THE BODY IN THE STREET
HTML http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Body_In_The_Street
> By Charles P. Pierce on August 22, 2014
>
> ..they have built the electric chair and hired the executioner
to throw the switch all right we are two nations America our
nation has been beaten by strangers who have bought the laws and
fenced off the meadows and cut down the woods for pulp and
turned our pleasant cities into slums and sweated the wealth out
of our people...
> -- John Dos Passos, "The Big Money," USA
>
>
[float=left]
HTML http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/cc/453949514_614-2CIS41-large.jpg[/float]
> I keep coming back to what seems to me to be the most inhumane
thing of all, the inhumane thing that happened before the rage
began to rise, and before the backlash began to build, and
before the cameras and television lights, and before the tear
gas and the stun grenades and the chants and the prayers. I keep
coming back to the one image that was there before the
international event began, before it became a television show
and a symbol in flames and something beyond what it was in the
first place. I keep coming back to one simple moment, one
ghastly fact. One image, from which all the other images have
flowed.
>
> They left the body in the street.
>
> Dictators leave bodies in the street.
>
> Petty local satraps leave bodies in the street.
>
> Warlords leave bodies in the street.
>
> A police officer shot Michael Brown to death. And they left
his body in the street. For four hours. Bodies do not lie in the
street for four hours. Not in an advanced society. Bodies lie in
the street for four hours in small countries where they have
perpetual civil war. Bodies lie in the street for four hours on
back roads where people fight over the bare necessities of
simple living, where they fight over food and water and small,
useless parcels of land. Bodies lie in the street for four hours
in places in which poor people fight as proxies for rich people
in distant places, where they fight as proxies for the men who
dig out the diamonds, or who drill out the oil, or who set
ancient tribal grudges aflame for modern imperial purposes that
are as far from the original grudges as bullets are from bows.
Those are the places where they leave bodies in the street, as
object lessons, or to make a point, or because there isn't the
money to take the bodies away and bury them, or because nobody
gives a damn whether they are there or not. Those are the places
where they leave bodies in the street.
>
> Bodies are not left in the streets of the leafy suburbs. The
bodies of dogs and cats, or squirrels and raccoons, let alone
the bodies of children, are not left in the streets of the leafy
suburbs. No bodies are left in the streets of the financial
districts. Freeze to death on a bench in the financial districts
and you are whisked away before your inconvenient body can
disturb the folks in line at the Starbucks across the street.
But the body of a boy can be left in the street for four hours
in a place like Ferguson, Missouri, and who knows whether it was
because people wanted to make a point, or because nobody gave a
damn whether he was there or not. Ferguson, Missouri was a place
where they left a body in the street. For four hours. And the
rage rose, and the backlash built, and the cameras arrived, and
so did the cops, and the thing became something beyond what it
was in the first place. And, in a very real way, in the streets
of Ferguson, the body was still in the street.
>
> ***
>
> The rage rises.
>
> The very last march in which Martin Luther King, Jr.
participated ended violently. He had come to Memphis to lend
support to a strike by the city's sanitation workers. On March
28, 1968, King led a march in support of the striking workers.
It did not end well.
>
> King arrived late and found a massive crowd on the brink of
chaos. Lawson and King led the march together but quickly called
off the demonstration as violence began to erupt. King was
whisked away to a nearby hotel, and Lawson told the mass of
people to turn around and go back to the church. In the chaos
that followed, downtown shops were looted, and a 16-year-old was
shot and killed by a policeman. Police followed demonstrators
back to the Clayborn Temple, entered the church, released tear
gas inside the sanctuary, and clubbed people as they lay on the
floor to get fresh air. Loeb called for martial law and brought
in 4,000 National Guard troops. The following day, over 200
striking workers continued their daily march, carrying signs
that read, "I Am a Man"... At a news conference held before he
returned to Atlanta, King said that he had been unaware of the
divisions within the community, particularly of the presence of
a black youth group committed to "Black Power" called the
Invaders, who were accused of starting the violence.
> The backlash builds.
>
> Whites, angered by the property damage to businesses during
the aborted march, blamed blacks. The President of the Memphis
Chamber of Commerce told the New York Times: "You can't take
these Negro people and make the kind of citizens out of them
you'd like."(sic). Rev. Lawson would later note that the
nonviolence of thousands of black citizens who moved back to the
church and their homes was lost in press accounts of the story.
> A week or two later, Dr. King stepped out onto the balcony of
his motel room in Memphis. A white man shot him through the neck
and he died. They covered his body with a sheet. They did not
leave it there on the balcony, blood pooling around it, for four
hours.
>
> ***
>
> In 1965, the editors of the National Review traced the
violence of the Watts riots back to the baleful influence of Dr.
King's various campaigns throughout the South.
>
> For years now, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his
associates have been deliberately undermining the foundations of
internal order in this country. With their rabble-rousing
demagoguery, they have been cracking the "cake of custom" that
holds us together. With their doctrine of "civil disobedience,"
they have been teaching hundreds of thousands of Negroes -
particularly the adolescents and the children - that it is
perfectly all right to break the law and defy constituted
authority if you are a Negro-with-a-grievance; in protest
against injustice. And they have done more than talk. They have
on occasion after occasion, in almost every part of the country,
called out their mobs on the streets, promoted "school strikes,"
sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in
explicit defiance of the public authority. They have taught
anarchy and chaos by word and deed - and, no doubt, with the
best intentions - and they have found apt pupils everywhere,
with intentions not of the best. Sow the wind, and reap the
whirlwind. But it is not they alone who reap it, but we as well;
the entire nation.
> In 2014, the editor of the National Review traced the violence
of the disturbances in Ferguson to the baleful influence of
MSNBC.
>
> You get the feeling that the enormous emotional investment in
Ferguson from the left-from Eric Holder to MSNBC on
down-reflects a nostalgia for the truly heroic phase of the
civil rights movement. They (most of them, at least) can never
be Freedom Riders, but they can write blog posts complaining
that the police gear in Ferguson looks scary. They can never
register voters in the Jim Crow South, but they can tweet
dramatic pictures of tear-gas canisters going off. They can
never march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge circa 1965, but they
can do some cable hits. Ferguson is all they've got, so it must
be spun up into a national crisis-our Gaza, our apartheid-to
increase the moral drama.
> They do not leave bodies in the street in Arlington County in
Virginia, where the editor of the National Review grew up.
>
> ***
>
> The story now seems to be about the "healing process" going on
in Ferguson. The nights are quieter. The National Guard has
pulled out. Some of the reporters have moved on to other things.
There will be a funeral on Monday for the boy whose body was
left in the street. It will be a dignified spectacle and it will
be terrific television and it will be said to be "healing" the
wounded place. Meanwhile, there are other people finding their
healing in many different ways.
>
> I support officer Wilson and he did a great job removing an
unnecessary thing from the public.
> An unnecessary thing.
>
> The body they left in the street.
>
> The body that, in so many ways, is still in the street.
>
> An unnecessary thing.
>
> The body they left in the street. For four hours. Ferguson,
Missouri was a place where they left a body in the street. For
four hours. And the rage rose, and the backlash built, and the
cameras arrived, and so did the cops, and the thing became
something beyond what it was in the first place. And, in a very
real way, in the streets of Ferguson, the body was still in the
street. What kind of place leaves the body of a boy in the
street? What kind of country does that?
>
> Dos Passos was correct.
>
> All right.
>
> We are two nations.
>
> All right?
>
--- End Quote ---
Almost. We are one wishful thinking nation of white privilege
that cultivates self worship and bling praise while constantly
inventing new excuses for our unfailing dislike for the unlike.
The unlike is not, now or ever was, another nation. The unlike
are an oppressed minority that has to learn to "act white" to
make a living and survive in this depraved, self loving and
barbaric society. And the kicker is the 24/7 PROJECTION of
EVERYTHING white society REALLY STANDS FOR on to the minorities
in general and African Americans in particular.
Here's the cognitive "impediment" problem for MR. LOGICAL
REASONING Whitey: Imagine you walk into a bar that has the best
and the worst people in the world in it. Whitey NEVER thinks
that the biggest bully troglodyte asshole in that bar is going
to zero in on that BULLSEYE painted on him while the "nice
people" go about their business of socializing. To whitey, it's
a matter of odds if you have to deal with an asshole or not. To
the Minority that CAN'T PASS, it's a 99% probability.
And all the above is REALLY (although they refuse to accept it
or admit it) a problem for whitey (the non-racist whitey)
because, by his own "math", the African American/minority is
just a MAGNET for TROUBLE.
IOW, the MAIN reason that bigoted behavior targeting African
Americans 24/7 CONTINUES is BECAUSE the non-racist whites REFUSE
to get MILITANT with the ASSHOLES among them. There will ALWAYS
be assholes among Homo SAPS of all colors, sizes and shapes.
But the RESPONSIBILITY of keeping them in check falls squarely
on the non-racist portion of the GROUP IN POWER that oppresses
the "unlike".
The group of Homo SAPs NOT IN POWER is NOT another "nation";
it's a whipping boy of a sick society.
It can be argued that, if African Americans were in whitey's
shoes and the situation was reversed, they would be just as much
in denial about their willful blindness as whitey is today.
SO WHAT? African Americans are just as human as any other Homo
SAP! The ISSUE is justice, not how much depraved behavior
mankind is capable of.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-220814234357.png
evil
#Post#: 1756--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 25, 2014, 9:09 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The Police, the Military, and Ferguson
HTML http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/08/the-police-the-military-and-ferguson/
Retired Cop Ray Lewis Blames Corporate America for the Situation
in Ferguson
HTML http://www.vice.com/read/retired-cop-ray-lewis-blames-corporate-america-for-the-situation-in-ferguson-825
HTML http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/178737/cops-chillin.jpg
#Post#: 1758--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 25, 2014, 9:57 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[img]
HTML http://images.dailykos.com/images/101578/lightbox/TMW2014-08-27color.png?1408726259[/img]
#Post#: 1759--------------------------------------------------
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: August 25, 2014, 10:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
How Often are Unarmed Black Men Shot Down By Police?
Snippet 1
o The most common reason for contact with police in 2008 was
being a driver in a traffic stop (44.1%)
o Black drivers were about three times as likely as white
drivers and about two times as likely as Hispanic drivers to be
searched during a traffic stop.
Yet as we all should know, even though Blacks get searched more
often during stops - police don't find more drugs or guns on
them.
White New Yorkers make up a small minority of stop-and-frisks,
which were 84 percent black and Latino residents. Despite this
much higher number of minorities deemed suspicious by police,
the likelihood that stopping an African American would find a
weapon was half the likelihood of finding one on a white person.
So why then, exactly, are they doing it? If stopping twice the
Black people only generates half the guns or drugs, why does
this happen?
Snippet 2
You can see that consistently from 2002 through 2008 that Black
citizens encountering police received threats of force, or use
of force at least Three Times More Often than White citizens.
Latinos citizens were threatened with force, or had force used
on them about Twice as Often.
If we are to use the example provided by Chicago as a rough
guide, about 95% of these instances are being deemed "Justified"
by the Police but that's not how the citizens feel about it.
Snippet 3
If the use of kicking, punching, tasering and pointing guns at
citizens is felt to be excessive an average of 74% of the time -
and is Three Times Higher for Black People - just what would the
percentages of unjustified, excessive uses of deadly force
really be like if we had those numbers?
Could it be as high as 80%, 90%?
Could it be so bad that the obviousness of it all would be plain
for all to see? Just how bad is it? Maybe that's why, with all
this number crunching already being provided by the BJS and
Police Departments and the FBI - we still don't have that. one.
strategic. figure.
Somehow I don't think that's a coincidence.
That's why we have people marching in the Streets in Ferguson,
and Los Angeles, and New York this week. People are marching
for the truth. For Justice. What we all used to not cynically
laugh and call "the American Way..."
Maybe we should start to solve the problem by defining and
quantifying the problem. Then we can measure if things are
getting better, or if they're getting worse, if we're going the
right direction or we're going the wrong way. Body cams or not,
if we don't have raw data - we don't really know what's going
on, do we? None of us.
But I think we now have a clue, and it doesn't look good.
HTML http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000370273/polls_Smiley_Angry_256x256_3451_356175_answer_4_xlarge.png
Vyan
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/24/1324132/-How-Often-are-Unarmed-Black-Men-Shot-Down-By-Police
*****************************************************
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