There's so much shit in Texas, I'm bound to step in some Goin' back to Dallas, take my razor and my gun If there are people lookin' for trouble, sure gonna give 'em some I load up my revolver, sharpen up my knife Some redneck messin' with me man, I'm bound to have his life Down to Dallas, take my razor and my gun Man, people there lookin' for trouble, sure gonna give 'em some
"Dallas" Johnny Winter
American segregation wasn't just the attempted physical separation of blacks from whites. It was the zealously enforced rule that black people were inferior and had no right to contradict whites, talk back to whites, displease whites, complain about being cheated by whites, testify against whites or do anything that would set their will against any white person, regardless of age, gender, status, right or wrong.To do otherwise would be to be considered "uppity". And to be considered uppity meant that a black person ran the high risk of assault or worse by local outraged whites, often with the tacit assistance or open cooperation of law enforcement. Supposedly the changes which took place in the 1950s and 1960s put an end to that sort of foolishness. But unfortunately racism doesn't just go away because the law changes. There are still a lot of white people who really do hate black people.
And when that hate is combined with a badge and a gun, bad things can happen. Recently in Texas (and why am I not surprised about this) a white police chief and his friends behaved as if this were 1917 and not 2017.
You must be able to get along with other people. You don't have to like them but you must live with them. Our actions continually impact other people. When you are neighbors with someone you recognize this. You and your neighbor can't solve every dispute by shouting and fisticuffs. When you are neighbors with someone there's a good chance that neither of you is going anywhere anytime soon. You and your neighbor may need each other's help someday, whether it's something as prosaic as your neighbor plowing your driveway during the Winter Deathstorm of 2017 or you being willing to let the police know the license plate of the van that was parked outside your neighbor's house while it was burglarized. So when your neighbor asks you to turn your music down you might be annoyed. But if you are normal you'd remember the time that your neighbor helped you to change a flat. You'd probably turn down the music. Even if you didn't know your neighbor from Adam, you might consider granting their request because, as mentioned, reciprocity often works. You and your neighbor will be in a position to help and hurt each other for a while. But people who aren't neighbors and who aren't normal may not recognize the benefits of relationship reciprocity, as 68 year old North Lauderdale, Florida resident Nancy James discovered when she asked a group of teens to turn down their music at a pool party. The teens, many of whom did not live in the complex, didn't appreciate her request.
With Donald Trump's election there has been a sharp shift in interior and border enforcement against unlawfully resident foreign nationals (illegal immigrants). Per Trump's directives, most of the people detained so far by ICE have been people with felony records and/or previously existing orders of removal. Many people, American or not, fiercely oppose the new Administration's policy changes. Some folks demand that there be not a single more deportation. Others have dropped their pretenses and now insist that the US have open borders. Scarcely a day goes by without one of the major newspapers of record (New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, etc) featuring a story, editorial or column decrying the possible removal of illegal immigrants. Some people have drawn analogies between deportations and the US enslavement of Africans or the Holocaust. There have been multiple demonstrations and even a few disturbances here or there. But many people have overlooked the impact that illegal immigration can have on American citizens. This is a story from December of 2016 but it's still quite timely in my view. A group of African-American men filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Chicago federal court alleging systematic discrimination by a temporary staffing agency and several of its clients they say passed over black applicants in favor of Hispanic workers. The alleged discrimination took place at MVP Staffing's Cicero branch office, which the lawsuit claims was directed by clients not to send African-American workers to their companies for assignments. Those wishes allegedly were communicated using code words, according to testimony from former dispatchers and on-site representatives given in prior cases and attached to the filing as evidence. For example, according to the lawsuit, "guapos," which translates to pretty boys, would be used to refer to African-Americans to suggest they don't want to do dirty work. The terms "feos" (translated to mean "dirty ones")," "bilingues" (bilinguals) and "los que escuchan La Ley" (referring to people who listen to Spanish-language radio station La Ley) were used to refer to Hispanic laborers, the lawsuit alleges.
On September 16, 2016 Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby shot and killed one U.S. citizen named Terence Crutcher. Mr. Crutcher was unarmed. He had no gun on his person or in his vehicle. His vehicle had stalled or broken down. There were no warrants for Mr. Crutcher's arrest. Police did not apparently render any assistance to Mr. Crutcher. They evidently did not put out any hazard lights, offer him a jump, help move the vehicle off the road, try to determine the problem with the vehicle, or call for a tow truck or roadside assistance. These are the things that most citizens who are having car trouble would expect the police to do. After all police are supposed to serve and protect. Unfortunately Mr. Crutcher was a black man. The police immediately saw him as a threat. In no short time after their arrival the police are yelling things at Mr. Crutcher and have him surrounded. Mr. Crutcher has his hands up. A police officer in a helicopter says that Mr. Crutcher "looks like a bad dude". And shortly after that two police officers almost simultaneously tase and shoot Mr. Crutcher. The police don't even bother to tend to the dying man's wounds but instead let him bleed out. They appeared to be more concerned with making sure that Officer Shelby was emotionally okay. Shelby has not been arrested or charged yet. I'm not being fashionably cynical when I write that I will be surprised if she does goes to trial. Her attorney is of course reaching for the tried and true tactic of claiming fear of the "big black man". Quite often this is a literal get out of jail card for white police officers. As many people on twitter have pointed out at this point if someone doesn't understand that there is a problem with police use of force against black people, disproportionately black men and boys, then they don't want to know. Most people will have car trouble at some point in our lives. Imagine running into someone who is so consumed with fear and hatred of you that there is literally nothing you can say or do that will not be interpreted as a threat. Well Mr. Crutcher didn't have to imagine that scenario. He was a Black man in America. He knew the deal. He kept his hands up even though he'd committed no crime. And he still died.
The usual suspects are already lining up to defend the police and claim that if only Crutcher had done x, y, and z then he'd still be alive. Whatever. This is the pure essence of racism-the ignorant unreasoning and unconstrained loathing of blackness. Shelby and company constructed a threat in their minds that did not exist and then acted on it. If you are so racist that blackness itself is a deadly threat then you shouldn't have the authority of the state or be able to carry weapons. This is not a training problem. This is a consequences problem. For the record you can watch the videos below. So far the people who were blasting Colin Kaepernick for his protest about police killings and brutality haven't had too much to say. Mr. Crutcher's family and their attorney speak in the last video.
It's important to keep in mind how fragile and precious your health and life really is. No one knows the day that he or she will leave this world or how he or she will depart. But sometimes life gives us little reminders that nothing is guaranteed. Local writer, sports radio talk show host, and former Detroit News journalist Terry Foster was reminded of that recently when he had a mild stroke that was apparently brought on by hypertension. Foster was already dealing with Type 2 diabetes. Hypertension and Type 2 diabetes often occur together. Although it appears that Foster had his blood glucose within safe levels he did not have his hypertension under control. So what happened, happened. This is just another reminder of how important it is for people, particularly African-Americans, to avoid these conditions in the first place or stringently deal with the conditions if they are unfortunate enough to have them. Proper diet and exercise are not only what we owe to ourselves and our loved ones as joyful payment for being alive but good food and vigorous movement are also some of the most effective tools we have to fight hypertension and Type 2 diabetes. Some people still consider it a sign of virility to avoid seeing a doctor. I think that the wiser move is to treat going to the doctor the same way you would maintenance on a car or home-- a routine if occasionally unpleasant task that must be done in order to avoid larger costs down the line. The scary thing about hypertension is that you may have it for quite some time and feel no ill effects. You'll feel fine right up until the moment when you have a stroke, go blind or undergo even worse experiences. Highly engaged listeners and video stream viewers could have noticed a few weeks ago that Foster seemed to be having difficulty with some words. He says now that he was in denial. “I was struggling with my speech and my fine motor skills in my right hand were off,” Foster said. “I was typing slower, I had slower reaction times and I thought it was the effect of a bad cold that I had, but obviously it wasn’t and I was on the air for a couple of days and I was struggling with my speech. At some point, I was kind of getting scared and said ‘I need to go in and see what’s going on’ and that’s what that was.” What was the last straw? “It was slurred, I couldn’t say ‘971 The Ticket,’ I was like saying ‘nine-one the Ticket, like that. There were certain words that I could not say or they were child-like when I said that,” Foster said. “And so, I think, to compensate I started talking louder and slower and that was the big symptom right there.” Now, he has a message for his listeners, the men, especially. Don’t skip doctor’s visits. And no matter how strong you feel, no one is invincible. Foster said he hadn’t been to the doctor and didn’t know he had high blood pressure, which was 220 over something he can’t remember when he showed up at Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield suspecting something was wrong. Like most, he was eating inconsistently, high-fat foods sometimes and healthy meals other times.
Below Foster talks about the literal bullet he dodged and some of the warning signs he ignored. I thought this talk was worth sharing. Each of us may have inherited some weaknesses from our parents. We can't do anything about that. But we can control what we do with our body and how we treat it. There's a wealth of information available on how to eat better and exercise more often. Doing those things just might save your life.
Let's say that you invite a guest to your home. He says he needs to relieve himself. You inform him where the restroom is. But he says "No thanks, I keep it 100!" He then proceeds to remove his lower clothing and joyously defecate on your living room carpet. When you inform him that you have a BIG problem with what he just did he self-righteously accuses you of hypocrisy. After all, everyone has body functions. Why should he hide his? How dare you impose your hypocritical standards on him. He's a better person than you because he's honest. That admittedly imperfect analogy describes my feelings when I read that comedian and writer Larry Wilmore had used a form of a racial slur at the Saturday White House Correspondents Dinner to describe President Obama and his appreciation for the President. Wilmore, the host of Comedy Central's "The Nightly Report," used the term at the close of his comedy monologue at the annual glittery gathering of politicians, journalists, celebrities and dignitaries. He ended his 20 minutes of barbs with sincere personal remarks about what it means to see a black president in his lifetime. “When I was a kid I lived in a country where people couldn’t accept a black quarterback,” Wilmore said. “Now think about that: A black man was thought by his mere color not good enough to lead a football team. And now to live in your time, Mr. President, when a black man can lead the entire free world. Words alone do me no justice. So, Mr. President, I'm going to keep it a hundred. Yo Barry, you did it, my n---a." Wimore pounded his chest in a "peace out" gesture. Obama returned the gesture, laughed and rose from his seat to shake Wilmore's hand.
What sort of Jedi mind trick have racists done on black people so that not only do we call each other a racial slur that they created but we are proud to do so and consider it daring and revolutionary to do so in front of white people? In fact a big part of the reason that some of us want to use that word is just so we can go na-na-na-na at white people and say you can't say it so there!
No other group routinely does this.
No Jewish person would go to a ceremony and congratulate Ruth Bader Ginsburg by calling her a k**e.
No Italian would speak in mixed company about how proud they are of Rudy Giuliani, their d**o from way back.
No South Asian would give a shout out to their street s***** comrade, US Attorney Preet Bharara. No East Asian would tell US Ambassador Gary Locke that they are proud that he's a g**k just like him. Why? Because those communities all seem to have enough self-respect and common sense to realize that a) you don't insult your own in public that way and b) some words can't be reclaimed.
Somehow the Enemy has convinced us that by using his language to describe each other we're doing the right thing and keeping it real. Real stupid. Again. My rant is not about that hoary foolish dance that blacks and whites engage in where whites self-righteously claim to be mightily offended and oppressed that they can't say n******. Besides although I am by definition not privy to exclusively white conversations, some friends of mine who are tell me that some whites have no problem letting racial slurs fly once they feel comfortable and safe. That's not what it's about. My question is why are black people still saying it? Because I tell you the fact that we still routinely refer to each other with racial slurs is probably not unrelated to the fact that we have such a high murder rate. It's probably not unrelated to the fact that people just off the boat who can barely speak English often dominate such businesses in the black community such as hair care or gas stations or grocery stores. It's probably not unrelated to the fact that every day there is news about how this or that white billionaire/millionaire is making a deal in downtown inner city USA or is being asked to save some inner city while somehow after 45+ years of black civic leadership the black businesses in inner cities are disproportionately wig shops, church affiliated businesses or cell phone franchises. It's probably not unrelated to the fact that even the black professional class has a tough time finding black clients because several black people prefer white money managers, agents, lawyers, doctors, accountants, real estate agents,etc. So the black community can't offer regular employment to either its professional class or its knucklehead class, with dire albeit different consequences for both. Is this all because of self-hate and using racial slurs with each other? Well no. Obviously not. But self-hate plays a part. You can not trust, love or work well with someone when you use dehumanizing language to describe them. Dehumanizing someone makes it easier to hate them or kill them.
What message does it send the world to have a black man referring to the most powerful black man in the word as a racial slur? Netanyahu and Putin probably loved that scene.
How did flaunting our supposed ability to call each other racial slurs in public become principled defiance to racist white power? I missed that memo. No one's perfect. White supremacy has done a number on us all. But we should fight against that mindset, not celebrate it. When I hear people go out of their way to call each other n******s and b****s when brother and sister should be used, I hear someone who deep down inside is still terrorized and mentally defeated. Such people are so scared of being free and independent that they'd rather hold on to the language of submission and enslavement. There are times, when contrary to the modern zeitgeist, the street people, the common man, the poor man, etc gets it wrong. Wilmore and Obama both know better. They should set a better example, not pander to low class stereotypes. Wilmore was tactless and tasteless. And worst of all, he just wasn't funny.
Usually I defer, however reluctantly or conditionally, to the received wisdom that the best way to proceed with police officers who are behaving unlawfully or unfairly towards you or yours is to comply with directions, keep your mouth shut and live to fight another day. They have weapons and you likely don't. Your goal should be to stay alive. But as the saying goes, a nation of sheep begets a government of wolves. So there must be limits to the tolerance we grant police. Police are not gods. They are not above the law. They only deserve deference or respect to the extent that they follow the law. When police obliterate the line between criminal and cop, they're just another thug. If someone who wasn't a police officer came up to you and demanded that you remove your clothing and underwear so that they could stick something inside of you or ordered you to strip in front of their leering sarcastic friends, I'm betting that you would reject that order. You would likely immediately remove yourself from the location, were you able to do so. And if push came to shove you would defend yourself from this pervert's demented desires. You have a right to defend yourself from illegal behavior. You have a right to self-defense. The only reason that we don't normally behave that way with police is because we have agreed to give some extreme powers to police in order to detect and apprehend criminals while keeping the rest of society safe. But when police become evil for lack of a better word that consent can and should be revoked. A horrifying example of how evil some police officers can be recently came to light in Aiken, South Carolina. A white police officer unlawfully stopped a car driven by a black woman with a black man passenger. He and his cohorts then proceeded to unlawfully search the car and to strip search the man and woman, including the man's rectum. Most of this was on video. Lakeya Hicks and Elijah Pontoon were in Hicks’s car just a couple of blocks from downtown Aiken when they were pulled over by Officer Chris Medlin of the Aiken Department of Public Safety. Hicks was driving. She had recently purchased the car, so it still had temporary tags. In the video, Medlin asks Hicks to get out, then tells her that he stopped her because of the “paper tag” on her car. This already is a problem. There’s no law against temporary tags in South Carolina, so long as they haven’t expired. Medlin then asks Pontoon for identification. Since he was in the passenger seat, Pontoon wouldn’t have been required to provide ID even if the stop had been legitimate. Still, he provides his driver’s license to Medlin. A couple of minutes later, Medlin tells Hicks that her license and tags check out. (You can see the time stamp in the lower left corner of the video.) This should be the end of the stop — which, again, should never have happened in the first place. Instead, Medlin orders Pontoon out of the vehicle and handcuffs him. He also orders Hicks out of the car. Pontoon then asks Medlin what’s happening. Medlin ignores him. Pontoon asks again. Medlin responds that he’ll “explain it all in a minute.” Several minutes later, a female officers appears. Medlin then tells Pontoon, “Because of your history, I’ve got a dog coming in here. Gonna walk a dog around the car.” About 30 seconds later, he adds, “You gonna pay for this one, boy.” LINK This abuse won't change until someone (i.e. a bullying cop) gets put six feet under. I just don't see other ways. Marching and protesting and boycotting and avoidance and pleading and appealing to morality haven't worked. Cops who use their badge to insult, intimidate, harass and in this case sexually assault people just aren't bothered by the threat of legal consequences because everyone knows such consequences are very rare. Federal prosecutors just don't bring charges against local law enforcement personnel. In most cases like this there won't be a state criminal trial either. And if there is, usually prosecutors and judges do their absolute bare minimum. Juries are often reluctant to convict. This is especially the case since the system will do everything in its power to prevent people like Hicks or Pontoon from sitting on juries. Even when a police officer is charged and a diverse jury could be selected the cop can always just opt for a judge to decide the case. Many judges are former prosecutors. So legal penalties don't deter these cops. There's only a slim chance that they will lose their job. Apparently the endless diversity classes, Officer Friendly school visits and internal legal training haven't made a dent in the behavior depicted. From what I can tell, as far as the average police officer is concerned, the law on the street is whatever he or she says it is. Other people more qualified than I can argue all the legal whys and wherefores but according to the legal experts quoted in the Post story, everything that happened was illegal. The police had no reason other than bias and personal dislike (and sexual sadism?) to pull over the black couple. This policing is descended directly from slave patrols of antebellum America. Poor whites, who often didn't own kidnapped Africans, were able to vent their class and racial hatred and jealousy on slaves travelling between plantations or free blacks travelling to their home or business. It's also part of the War on Drugs and the resulting normalization of prison procedures (extreme immediate compliance, strip searches, aggressive interrogations) that have spread throughout society. This sort of government overreach should be something that conservatives and liberals agree needs to be stopped. Unfortunately, with a few noted and honorable exceptions, the sort of conservatives who love to wave their Gasden flag, cite Thomas Jefferson quotes about the tree of liberty requiring blood, and yell about oppressive big government, don't seem to get that infuriated about examples of oppressive government physically violating citizens like Hicks and Pontoon. I wonder why that might be. This is the duality of America. A black man can be elected President twice. And yet a black man and woman can be treated by their own government as if it's 1816 and not 2016. How do we resolve that? I really don't know. Violence is a bad thing. I try to avoid it. But I can't let another man violate me or mine in such a manner. Somebody would have to go.
Last night Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders managed to beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the March 8 Michigan Democratic Primary by 49.83% to 48.3%. This slim margin of victory for Sanders was astounding given that polls shortly before the vote showed that Clinton was ahead by double digits. Michigan has a primary which is closed (technically defined as closed because you have to declare party affiliation before you can get a ballot) but there is not a requirement that you are a registered member of one party or another. So there might be some sour grapes among partisans of one party or another who are convinced that their preferred candidate only lost because of those rascally rapscallions of the other party who lied about their party affiliation just to cast a vote in a different primary. But at this point there is no evidence of that. Michigan is different from the southern states which Clinton was winning handily (like Mississippi which Clinton won 83-17) in that (1) there are still white Democrats in Michigan, (2) there is still an active (but dying) union movement, and (3) Michigan lacks a huge Hispanic or Asian population. Sanders' attempt to make his case to Black voters paid off in Michigan. He got roughly 30~35% of the Black vote, which coupled with a more competitive percentage of the white vote allowed him to win. In Michigan in particular there's a strong undercurrent of discontent over NAFTA, "free trade" and globalization which was likely more fertile ground for Sanders' message. Michigan is ground zero for the loss of high wage middle class manufacturing jobs. In any event Sanders still has an uphill battle for the nomination but last night showed that it's not time for his political funeral just yet. Clinton will need to alter her message a bit so that it can resonate with a few more male voters in the Midwest, especially white ones. I think it's interesting that Clinton has mostly run up the score in states that will almost certainly be in the Republican column on election day. Michigan is whiter than the nation as a whole but it's also a state which usually leans Democratic. That Sanders won here after being down by such a huge margin has to give pause to some people in the Clinton camp. The big question will be if Michigan is just a bump in the road to the inevitable Clinton nomination or is it a harbinger for a comeback which hasn't been seen in modern times.
Donald Trump won the Republican Primary in Michigan with 37% of the vote. I also think he won in part because of his nationalist stance on trade issues. I think he will be the Republican nominee. Cruz came in second at 25% while Ohio Governor Kasich finished third at 24%. Marco Rubio finished fourth with just 9% of the vote and lacks any reason to keep going other than spite. Rubio did win in Puerto Rico but of course Puerto Rico provides no electoral votes. Perhaps Rubio will soldier on until the primary in his home state of Florida but he's currently behind there.
As I've made clear on many occasions in this space I'm not overly fond of the police. Just as a general rule if police are talking to you for any length of time something has probably gone wrong in your day. All else equal police are usually quicker to initiate and escalate aggressive action against Black citizens than they are against Caucasian ones whether it it be shooting people only armed with wallets or toy guns, choking people accused of selling loose cigarettes, arresting professors who are entering their own home or writing people tickets for incredibly obscure and vague traffic violations which only ever seem to be enforced against Black people. There is a problem with policing in this country. After saying that though police do have a job to do. They are necessary. I don't want police not to arrest anyone. Humans aren't saints. We never will be. I just want police to stop being needlessly violent, racist, brutal or bullying. When I first saw this story headline I was primed to find fault with the police officers' action. But after reading the story I couldn't see what the police did wrong. And believe me I looked. A black Princeton professor is protesting her arrest during a traffic stop last week, saying she was mistreated because of her race by two white police officers who searched her and handcuffed her to a table. The police chief in Princeton, N.J., however, said the officers had followed department policy in arresting the professor, Imani Perry. The arrest of Dr. Perry, a professor of African-American studies, and the divergent views of how it was handled have reignited a debate on social media over police tactics and racial profiling. The arrest came after officers stopped Dr. Perry around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday for driving 67 miles per hour in a 45 m.p.h. zone, Capt. Nicholas K. Sutter, the department chief, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. While Dr. Perry said in a message posted online that she was arrested over “a single parking ticket,” Captain Sutter said that the officers who stopped her — a man and a woman — learned during a routine check that her driving privileges had been suspended and a warrant had been issued for her arrest over two unpaid parking violations from 2013. “The warrant commands the officer to take the person into custody,” Captain Sutter said. The officers searched, handcuffed and placed Dr. Perry into a squad car, the captain said. At the police station, she was handcuffed to a workstation and booked. After paying outstanding fines totaling $130, he said, she was released. Dr. Perry, who declined to comment via email on Tuesday, wrote about the episode on Twitter and Facebook on Monday, saying it had left her humiliated and frightened. LINK
So I'm not sure what the good professor expected the police to do in this situation. If you are really doing 67 mph in a 45 mph zone chances are good that the police will notice that and stop you. If you're doing 22 mph above the speed limit, no matter what your race there is a good probability that you will receive a ticket. Once the police have stopped and identified you, if they discover that you're driving on a suspended license and have an outstanding arrest warrant, your travel plans are going to change. It's virtually a sure bet that they will ask you to (and by ask I mean make) accompany them to the nearest local police station or jail to get things sorted out. And being police they will likely use the imperative mood and imperious tones of voice that are guaranteed to rub you the wrong way. Now the original underlying parking tickets may well have been issued by racist cops looking to mess with black people for their own amusement or to meet revenue quotas. I wouldn't have been surprised at all. We've seen that sort of thing all over the US, most infamously in Ferguson. The tickets may have been ridiculous. But if you are a victim of such an occurrence your choice is to fight them in court or pay them. Doing neither will simply make matters worse as we saw in this situation. Maybe I'm missing something but from the article it appears that the police did what they were supposed to do. It is a fact that police routinely mistreat black people or other non-black people whom they perceive as being powerless. It is also a fact that in any given individual case you have to show some form of mistreatment. And I just didn't see that in this case, even predisposed as I am to expecting it. Of course maybe the police are lying. Maybe they were already profiling the professor. But if so it's not apparent from anything the professor says. There are very real cases of bias in the world. Mentioning this incident in relation to them trivializes more dangerous police encounters. Again I understand that the professor did not like her run-in with the police. Most people don't. I certainly haven't. But in this individual case I think some perspective is of use.
We are amazed but not amused By all the things you say that you'll do Though much concerned but not involved With decisions that are made by you But we are sick and tired of hearing your song Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong 'Cause if you really want to hear our views You haven't done nothing "You haven't done nothing"- Stevie Wonder Unless you have been completely cut off from the news over the past 90 days you have heard about the crisis in Flint, Michigan. In 2013, the State of Michigan took control over Flint and forced a change from the Detroit water supply to the local water supply from the Flint river. The problem with this decision was that the Flint river water was too corrosive for older untreated pipes. Lead and other contaminants soon started leaching into the water supply. There is no amount of lead in drinking water which is considered to be safe. People consuming or using the water immediately noticed bad colors, foul smells, wrong tastes and acidic reactions to metals. When all of this was brought to the attention of the emergency manager,the state officials responsible for water safety, and other state appointees and politicos they ignored the concerns of the citizens, mocked them, slow walked or tried to "fix" water quality tests, viciously attacked any scientist who raised alarms about the Flint water, lied and said the water was safe, and worked assiduously behind the scenes to figure out a way to blame anyone except themselves. I really don't have a lot to say about this both because (1) I need to create shorter posts due to increasing work responsibilities and (2) the actions of most of the people involved are obviously beyond reprehensible. They shock the conscience. It is just barely defensible for the state to take over financial operations of a city that is unable or unwilling to pay its bills. It is never defensible for anyone to poison people to attempt to balance the books. And yet that is precisely what happened in Flint.
As has been pointed out over and over again during the past few weeks if ISIS or some other foreign terrorist group had poured lead into the drinking water of a US city there would be national, even international, outrage both at the perpetrators as well as the incompetents who let it happen. Both drones and DoJ prosecutors would be immediately dispatched. A lot of the criminals involved would end up dead or in prison. But Flint is a majority black and mostly impoverished city. So instead we have the spectacle of the National Review claiming that the Republicans in charge aren't to blame. We have local Michigan Republicans claiming that the lead in water problem is overblown. We have EPA administrators not doing their job. We have Republicans claiming that the Feds are the true villains, which given the usual Republican viewpoint on states' rights and regulation, is like a bank robber claiming that the FBI is responsible for his crime wave. After all they should have stopped him sooner. There is an excellent examination of the timeline here. You can also hear what the whistleblower scientist, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, had to say here at 2:59. People didn't like what she had to say but fortunately she had the courage of her convictions and the knowledge that her research was correct. As she points out, the problem may be even worse than we realize.
Unfortunately there is probably not much recourse for criminal prosecutions under Michigan law. It appears at first glance as if the public actors may be generally protected from criminal charges under the Emergency manager provision. We shall see. Civil cases are a certainty. There may be room for criminal charges under Federal law. But that is of course up to the President and Attorney General. I don't know the relevant laws. I will say that if we can't arrest a public official for poisoning an entire community then the law is a joke. It's unlikely that Governor Rick Snyder will be impeached as Republicans have majorities in both the Michigan House and Senate. Previous recalls have failed. At this time Snyder has said he's not resigning. As a final kick in the teeth the state is requiring that people pay for the poison water they consumed. If that is not evil I don't know what is. Please note that with only a few exceptions no Republican running for President has had anything to say about this issue. It's just not something they seem to care about. Everyone has to prioritize which issues they find important. But the next time someone wonders aloud, in good faith or otherwise, why black Americans albeit diverse in income, wealth, political views and other characteristics, tend not to vote for Republicans, please point them to this story. A party that shows depraved indifference to people based on skin color and/or class tends not to get their votes. Ironically though this horror might be the catalyst for less partisanship in Michigan as a right wing militia has assisted in distributing clean drinking water. The militia is also making noise about armed self-defense. So there's that. Ultimately no matter your race, gender, age, sexuality or other marker of identity, you don't want lead in your water.
Another day, another bad story out of Detroit concerning payment of bills. We've discussed this before. Not much has changed. There is still a big mess. It's a perfect storm of massive unemployment and underemployment, poverty, bad consumer decision making, poor record keeping and accounting by the Water Department and malicious gamesmanship by landlords and speculators. All of this has meant that there are some people who simply won't pay their water bills because they have had the accurate perception that they can get away with not doing so mixed with a population of people who simply don't have the resources to regularly pay their water bills. Poverty is real and limits people's ability to enjoy life. Perhaps some of the people in this latest story should not be shamed but rather all of us should be ashamed for having built a society in which large numbers of people have no opportunity to get ahead. It doesn't matter how much moral opprobrium you vent at someone for their life choices. If they don't have the money, they don't have the money. But public utility bills must be paid. I have little sympathy for someone who makes sure that their cable bill is paid but the water bill isn't. When someone does that they're telling you loud and clear what is most important to them. And it's not the water bill. If you use a service you should pay for it. Without everyone agreeing to that basic deal, society doesn't work. Things fall apart. People at the higher end of the income and wealth spectrum start to resent paying for those they see as deadbeats and freeloaders and become more receptive to the idea of starving the public sector of funds (except for military and police and fire). And people at the lower end of the income and wealth spectrum become more receptive to the idea that virtually every "need" should be provided for by the government free of charge. Throw in some racial resentments around gentrification and the idea that the Water Department has devious reasons for shutoffs and demanding payment and you get this situation. How do you survive without running water for more than two years? First, get a trash can. Put it under the roof to collect water to flush the toilet. Then, get a bucket and remember what your grandparents taught you in the early 1950s, before indoor plumbing reached all of rural America. “You use your brain. You scramble. You survive because you’re used to dealing with nothing,” said Fayette Coleman, 66, who grew up fetching water from wells in Belleville. She hasn’t had running water in her Brightmoor house since May 2013. The crumbling home is one of at least 4,000 in Detroit — and perhaps many more — whose water was never turned back on after massive shutoffs attracted international attention last year.
The outcry faded, but the situation hasn’t. Within a block of Coleman’s house on Fielding near Lyndon, at least three neighbors have endured shutoffs, including one who spent months walking up the street, twice a day, to fill buckets at a friend’s before service resumed in mid-November. Citywide, a third of all residential accounts in Detroit— 68,000 of 200,000 — are at least 60 days past due, city records show. The water issue is coming to light as a special panel studying water affordability is expected to present its plan to the Detroit City Council in January. The group expects to consider recommendations — including lower prices for low-income residents — when it meets for the last time Tuesday. Help is available, said Gary Brown, director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Some 39,000 residents are on payment plans, and the city has nearly $1 million available in payment assistance. “If you come in and say you are having an issue, we can find ways to help people,” Brown said. “But you have to come in.” Coleman gets by using bottled water for drinking, much of which she gets from charity. She heats water for sponge baths and flushes the toilet only after bowel movements. Otherwise, she does without.
Another day, another black person killed by a cop. Based on past experiences there will almost surely be brain dead trolls popping up like mushrooms across social media who will start bleating "what about black-on-black violence" or claim that unless we are law enforcement officials ourselves that we can never really walk in an officer's shoes and thus have no right to judge. Both of those things are stupid deflections. But just for the record, the black criminals who mostly kill other black people and occasionally kill white people, are usually promptly arrested, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. They don't have (nor should they have) aggressive unions defending them, bosses who will lose evidence, prosecutors who will delay charging them and a friendly media and supportive public (jury pool) who will often frame the worst actions in the most benign light possible. And to the second common deflection, of course police have the right to self-defense and to use deadly force to protect others. No one questions that. If someone is stupid enough to attack a police officer who is acting within the law and gets themselves shot for their trouble you won't find me shedding many tears. No. And whether they like it or not, police officers are indeed not above the law. When they do wrong they should be held to account just like everyone else. Our society can't or rather shouldn't function with a caste of people who can kill at will with no repercussions or consequences. The problem here is that American police officers are overly aggressive towards black people, regardless of whether said black people are committing crimes or not. And when force is used against a black person, it's often considered to be justified, regardless of the actual facts of the case. Cops are very quick to use force against black people, no matter if there is an objective threat or not. Tennis players minding their own business get tackled. Recalcitrant children are slammed to the ground or dragged across classrooms. Men allegedly selling tax free cigarettes are choked to death. Someone driving without a license who might owe child support is shot in the back. Blackness in and of itself seems to justify the force. We've seen this over and over and over again. The most recent example, or rather the example that we just found out about occurred in Chicago in 2014, where CPD officer Jason Van Dyke killed Laquan McDonald. He shot him sixteen times. He shot him when McDonald was on the ground. According to details of the charges released in bond court Tuesday, Van Dyke was less than an hour into his overnight shift on the night of the shooting when a call came over the police radio at 9:47 p.m. of a citizen holding McDonald after he had been caught breaking into trucks and stealing radios in a parking lot near 41st Street and Kildare Avenue. Another unit responded first and said over the radio that McDonald was walking away with a knife in his hand, Assistant State’s Attorney William Delaney said. At 9:56 p.m., a beat car reported that McDonald had “popped the tire on their squad car,” Delaney said.
At 9:57 p.m., McDonald can be seen in the video walking away from the officers near the center line of Pulaski Road. Van Dyke and his partner got out of their marked Chevrolet Tahoe with their guns drawn, and Van Dyke took at least one step toward the teen and opened fire from about 10 feet away, Delaney said. “McDonald's arm jerks and his whole body spins around and falls to the ground,” Delaney said.
Alvarez said the video showed McDonald lying on the ground while shots continued to strike his body and the pavement near him, with puffs of debris kicking up and his arms and body jerking as he was hit. In all, Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before he started shooting, and the first shot was fired about six seconds after he exited his squad car, Alvarez said. About 14 or 15 seconds passed between the first and last shots fired by Van Dyke, and for 13 of those seconds, McDonald was on the ground, she said. According to interviews with other officers at the scene, McDonald never spoke to them or responded to commands to drop the knife. Witnesses who were stopped in traffic on Pulaski told authorities that McDonald seemed to be “looking for a way to get away from the police,” Alvarez said. “He never moved toward, lunged at or did anything threatening,” she said.Story link You can see the full video at the end. I don't know how long it will be up. Now again, if McDonald had rushed the officers that would be one thing. But he didn't. And the initial police report claimed that McDonald had lunged at the cops and died of one shot to the chest. Surprise, surprise, police officers lie. Allegedly some other cops tried to delete footage from local surveillance cameras which showed the event. The only reason we're learning about this is that whistleblowers inside the city administration or police department or elsewhere worked with journalists unconvinced by the official narrative to reveal the truth. The city has already settled with McDonald's family to the tune of $5 million. And the fact that Van Dyke was charged with first degree murder is literally unprecedented. That just doesn't happen often with police officers, particularly in Chicago. It remains to be seen whether Van Dyke is convicted of first degree murder. My understanding from friends, family members and associates who are attorneys is that the charge is a very high bar, especially for a police officer who is acting as part of his official duties. It doesn't make me feel great that the district attorney took a year to file charges. She apparently only did so because the video was going to come out. That doesn't seem like a profile in courage or integrity but perhaps better late than never. Time will tell.
Something which unites some people on the hard right and on the hard left or nationalist black left is the desire to sneer at the removal of the Confederate Flag from such official public spaces such as the Columbia South Carolina Statehouse or from Texas state license plates. The usual line of "reasoning" on the right will claim that because removal of the Confederate Flag will not stop the horror of "black-on-black" crime or any other pathology which apparently only affects black people it is therefore a waste of time and (this part is important because it dovetails nicely with what many right-wingers think of black people anyway) STUPID for black people to spend any time or energy trying to get the flag removed from public spaces. After this seeming axiom is pointed out the right-winger will usually try to convince you that the Confederate Flag has nothing at all to do with white supremacy or slavery and for that matter neither did the Civil War and anyone who thinks otherwise is the real racist, not them. I think the people who try to argue this are either mentally slow or think that you are. On the left of course there are people who understand the symbolism of the Confederate Flag and do not initially seek to claim that it has no meaning of hatred or a very specific and ugly type of white identity politics. Nonetheless they usually wind up claiming that the flag is harmless and/or needs to be understood with some sort of nuance . Another form of left-winger, disproportionately found in academia or other bastions of so-called radical thought, will claim that the US flag is the flag that black people really need to reject. And then of course there is the "more radical than thou" type who is thoroughly convinced that unless and until we can undo, eliminate and repair each and every incarnation of racism, capitalism, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, speciesism, transphobia, fat shaming, xenophobia, whiteness, nationalism, and any other "ism" you can think of going back to 1492 or before, then your protesting the Confederate Flag or being happy that there is a growing clamor to remove it from public spaces is just evidence that you're a brainwashed sap who's too quick to go for the okey-doke.
From this point of view you're watching people take flags down and thinking you did something while the power structure remains unchanged. Man you're stupid. Much like some of their counterparts on the far right, some people of the left really do enjoy believing that they're much smarter and thus more moral than the average putz on the street. This is not a political failing. It's a human one. Both of these critiques of people who are trying to remove Confederate Flags from public spaces miss the point. Each "argument" creates a straw man which is then thoroughly beaten. It's quite simple. The Confederate Flag is a symbolic "f*** you" to Black people. There are perhaps other meanings arguably but everyone knows, whether they want to admit or not, what the primary, secondary and tertiary meanings are. People don't like it when you insult them to their face, particularly when they're paying for the "honor". And by the way, the Confederates lost. Although many apparently disagree, I think it was a good thing that they lost. So the flag of the losers has no business being on the public space of the winners. If you want to wear your Confederate Flag belt buckle, wave it at your concerts, tie it to your pickup truck, knock yourself out. But it shouldn't be officially installed on state or federal property. And to those who argue that the US flag is the one we need to reject, the difference is that for all the evil that's been done and blood that's been shed in its name the US flag has the promise and possibility of inclusion and fair play. The Confederate Battle Flag does not and never did. The Confederate Flag is forever fixed in its meaning. Black people in the 1860s were not at all conflicted about which flag offered a better opportunity for advancement and recognition of their humanity. It is, public protestations to the contrary aside, possible for people to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can work to stop inner city violence, lower infant mortality rates, create better food and exercise options, stop police brutality, feed the hungry, assist the homeless or impoverished, prevent redlining, interrupt the flow of black people into prison, and STILL think that the Confederate Flag should come down from public display.
Lilly Belle, your hair is golden brown / I've seen your black man coming 'round Swear by God, I'm gonna cut him down Southern Man-Neil Young
I was reminded of the above quote from the classic rock song "Southern Man" when it was alleged that an event which evidently pushed killer Dylan Roof into his downwards spiral from garden variety racist to murderous savage was the fact that he lost out romantically to a black man. This sort of hatred based in real or more often perceived sexual rivalry or sexual assault has been the basis for many racist actions, from slavery to Jim Crow to lynchings to police shootings on down through the years. Just as a totem of racial hatred and treason like the Confederate Battle Flag has survived, so have the emotions which the flag embodies. So no one should be surprised that a man who says that he hates and wants to kill black people was drawn to Confederate imagery. Many modern day Confederate Flag supporters either do not want to think about or admit the nature of the state which they are defending. They will blather on at length about their Confederate veteran great-great-great-grandfather veteran and how brave and honorable he was ad nauseaum. Well to paraphrase George Carlin, my great-great-great-grandfather said F*** your great-great-great-grandfather. The Confederacy was created to protect and extend slavery and white supremacy. This is emphatically not a modern day interpretation of historical events and motives. The Confederate military, political, journalistic and philosophical leaders were crystal clear about why they were fighting, what they thought the proper relationship of black and white was, and how long slavery would continue if they won (indefinitely). We've been over this before but it is evidently worth pointing out again. The Confederate states seceded because they believed that President Lincoln in particular and the North in general were both at the very least insufficiently dedicated to and at the worst openly hostile to the twin causes of slavery and white supremacy. Check it out for yourself. The secession declarations put in plain English for posterity's sake just what the drafters thought of black people. Southern politicians appealed directly to racism to motivate their base. Federalism, tariffs and industrialization mattered to them only to the extent that that slavery was threatened.
Mississippi In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
Texas We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
Alexander Stephens Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.... Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. Link
And so on. Slavery was the animating cause of the Civil War. Of course many whites who fought for the south did not own slaves but they, with some notable exceptions previously discussed here, generally did believe wholeheartedly in white supremacy. The idea of black people having citizenship or voting was anathema to the Confederacy, thus the post war ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Post war, did white southerners graciously and quickly move to extend citizenship rights to the newly freed Africans? No. No they didn't. Rather, white southerners practiced sullen and violent resistance to any attempt to recognize, much less enforce, basic human rights for Black Americans. After reconciliation with the white North, the gloves came off completely. The South became a terror state for black people. The white southern population zealously enforced Jim Crow laws and customs in which a black person could be murdered for something as innocuous as looking a white person in the eye, refusing to move aside when a white person was walking on the sidewalk, or not letting themselves be cheated in a business transaction. Does any of this sound like the actions of people who went to war for any reason other than white supremacy? Except for the more honest present day racists such as Michael Hill, who wants a white state in the South, most Confederate flag supporters will not look too deeply into the history of the Confederacy and why the Confederacy attempted to secede. There's a denial that has grown up around the Confederacy and the very nature of slavery. Even conservatives who would wax indignant about dead enders in other situations still can't bring themselves to admit that slavery was wrong, a crime against humanity and that resistance to it was morally praiseworthy. Bill Kristol, who has the dubious distinction of being generally wrong about just about everything, thinks that it's problematic for the "left" to be insufficiently respectful of the Confederacy. It's hard for me to wrap my head about how backwards this viewpoint is, even coming from someone like Kristol, who makes a good living being wrong. There were SS men who fought tooth and nail against the Soviet invasion of Germany. Some were even heroic. But if a German today wrapped herself in Nazi regalia claiming she was only honoring the ultimate sacrifice of her brave ancestors, I doubt Kristol would see that as something worthy of respect or recognition. Hmm.
The Left's 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgment of Americans who fought for the Confederacy.
The fundamental issue is that the South never really went under anything approaching de-Nazification. Although they lost the war, for decades afterwards white southern political leaders and citizens adamantly refused to concede that slavery was wrong or that black people had human rights. It's only in the past 50 years that the South was forced,kicking and screaming, grudgingly and slowly, to give up legal segregation and white domination. It's ridiculous that 150 years after the South waved the white flag and ended the bloodiest war this nation ever endured, we as a country might finally be realizing that the regalia of traitor and racists isn't deserving of respect. But unfortunately that's what happens when you don't deal with problems when they first arise. Things fester and get worse. So it's a good thing that in places like Alabama, Mississippi and yes South Carolina, legislators and other political leaders are beginning to question the prevalence of the Confederate Flag on state grounds and insignia. Of course it's fair and accurate to point out that the US flag flew over slavery and other horrific acts. We shouldn't forget that. But unlike the Confederate Flag the US flag now at least theoretically contains the possibility of equal treatment under the law. The Confederate Flag is fixed forever in the belief of slavery and white supremacy. Roof chose exactly the correct flag for his actions. It's silly to pretend otherwise
FAKE CONSCIOUS COON ASS RAPPER KENDRICK LAMAR PART 2. I see calling out and exposing self hating fake black men who speak about consciousness but date and marry NON DARK SKIN WOMEN brought you haters to my page. WELL SHARE THIS MUTHERF**ING POST!!! These type of fake coons are the worst of the worst. DARK SKIN is the essence of true blackness and if these fakers were really and truly conscious they would MARRY DARK SKINNED WOMEN!!! You pissed ?? GOOD!!! LINK
The only reason to be concerned about someone else's romantic choices is if that person rejected you or cheated on you. Obviously you may have nasty thoughts about seeing that person with someone else. But we all deal with rejection. The resulting sadness or anger should only be temporary. Sure, some people's "temporary" may last for a few years. But we should always remember that we do not own anyone else’s good thing. To paraphrase Little Milton, when the good Lord made one (wo)man , Hallelujah, don’t you know that He made two. The world is full of acceptable partners. I just can't understand getting upset about the romantic choices of strangers. Some people live vicariously through celebrities. But that is a dumb way to live your life. You should find your own pathway through life and allow others to do the same. This woman Strober obviously has had pain in her past. Well so has everyone else. That's no excuse for being stupid or controlling. Has this Strober raised a fuss about Eve, Halle Berry, Rihanna, Mellody Hobson or several other black women who have found love with men who are significantly lighter or rather whiter than they are? I'm guessing not. Internalized racism and the need to control other people are horrible sins. But the sheer narcissism on display here (you must marry someone who looks like me otherwise you're a horrible person) is somewhere between amusing and horrifying in its scope. This is bad thinking.
