Tag Archives: african-american

Jul 11 2015
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Undoing Racism

A Cause for Celebration – momentarily

Image from Newsweek magazine.

Certainly not the only thing in this struggle, in fact just a symbolic act.  But oftentimes symoblism has its place and its meaning.  What’s most telling is the crowd’s chanting and its increase in excitement when the guards enter the gated area around the flagpole, which rises in intensity as they get closer to the pulling it down.

All the pomp and circumstance of the military, its worth nothing also, is likened only in ritual, ceremony and archaic superstition, to that of religious ceremonies across the world.  Think about that for a minute.

http://www.foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/160736-Barricades-up-ahead-of-Confederate-flag-removal.shtml#.VaGv7EbK9Ox

We have presented here for your pleasure and contemplation, not only the video of the flag lowering, but also a fitting song, from The Band.  While one would consider their song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” with the telling lines,

” … there goes Robert E. Lee!
Now I don’t mind chopping wood and I don’t care if the money’s no good,
Ya take what you need and you leave the rest, ‘
but they should have never taken the very best.”

Which encapsulates the sacrifice that young ‘white’ men gave and even slaves who were forced into fighting against their own interest.  No poor white in the south had a chance to make it the strict social order that demanded they sacrifice their lives in whatever way necessary to protect the interest of the plantation owner, including mustering in the town square to subvert rebellion; often rebellion of people they traded chickens and vegetables with during the evening, people they cheated when they could because of course, they could.  People they were ordered to treat like animals in a brutal social order that dehumanized everyone.

And with that thought, I give you the song by The Band known as “The Weight” which seems to describe the chaos, hell and confusion that must have ran through the south after Sherman burned his way through.  The burning of a social system that most people would think could only spring from the mind of some creature of hatred and hell has yet to happen though.  We have the weight to deal with, we have a broken social order with injustice that points at the fact that in many ways this country was formed to favor a small minority at the expense and sacrifice of the majority.  While through struggle and rebellion some portion of this country has scratched some portion of justice (however fragile), many still live under the weight of the old regime; the old order.  From public funding allocations to the judge and jury box to neighborhood, from birth to death, this country still thrives on a system an individual’s skin color is the final determinant of what end of the social order they will exist on; the final determinant of their humanity.

Lowering that flag only will begin the process that this country and so many people must undertake to take responsibility for the lives shattered and broken through three hundred years of living hell.  We all must come to terms with the truth.  The southern states that seceded did so to preserve a system in a few could live like aristocrats on the backs of the many to whom they arbitrarily parsed out roles which laid out who would toil for crumbs and who would toil to avoid the lash.

And does not this system still persist, wherein Americans gleefully climb the existing social hierarchy in which the mark of ascension is the number of people one has a right to reduce to nothing?  How can we claim to be the land “of the free” when we continue to hold people hostage inside a system where privileges are handed out to a few and handed down from generation to generation without question or any social obligation.  Where heirs can now become the new crowned princes and princesses, earned on the backs of the American working person, who too often and too increasingly sinks into the depths of poverty likened as a type of wage slavery we have been assured would never happen here.

Many people in New Hampshire and most of northern New England like to think themselves far away from any trace of responsibility for the sins of the south; but the fact remains that any utterance of hatred or racism from anyone anywhere makes that person and anyone who condones such, just as culpable as anyone below the old Mason-Dixon line.  Possibly even the sin of utterances and actions that replicate the old social order consummates an even greater sin as in fact, ignorance of the suffering and the pain of the south should at least cause some restraint in attitude.  But many have seen such isn’t true and people in the north hold just as much virulent racism as those in the south.

It needs to end.  We must lift this weight, this weight of hell, this weight of hate and replace it with redemption, cleansing, reparations and healing.

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May 31 2015
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Cops Gone Wild, Undoing Racism

So Why Isn’t the NRA Supporting This Open-Carry Group?

Humm.  Now what do you think might be different about this group, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club as opposed to the traditional hunt club/country boy NRA affiliated gun groups?

We don’t want to cause any readers the temptation to draw conclusions, but also consider that the mainstream media covers open carry protests that have people that look a lot different than these folks.

In addition we’d like readers to consider the differences in rhetoric between the traditional NRA related groups (and the NRA itself), these groups speak about policing their own communities, they speak about protecting themselves against police violence.  Why not the same kind of talk about the mythical ‘other’ that the traditional gun crowd likes to talk about? You know, the violent thugs that invade pristine communities and threaten the women and children.  Again, we see a stark difference; one talks about protecting their community from establishment while the other talks about protecting themselves “in their homes” (a favorite phrase reflecting a culture of individualism) against those outsiders (reflecting also acceptance of a desire to preserve socially segregated communities).

It serves well to note who’s nervous in what setting.  While police have repeatedly been shown being respectful some citizens that open carry, even when they may potentially threaten the public safety, it doesn’t take much for cops to get real jumpy about the wrong people and some perceived threat these wrong people pose to their person.

Contemplate.

Black Open Carry Protesters Are Marching On Capitol Against Police Brutality

From counter current news, link to story at bottom

capitol-march-huey-p-newton

They call themselves the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, named after the co-founder of the Black Panther Party For Self Defense. Like the defunct organization which called for reform of community policing, demanding that police come from the neighborhoods they serve, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club says they are marching “to promote self-defense and community policing” in response to the recent high profile stories about police shooting unarmed African Americans across the country.

To the protesters, “community policing” is more than just a word. Communities should be protected by members of the community, and held accountable. Ironically this was the original vision for community policing, articulated in 1812 by Sir Robert Peel. That’s right, it may surprise many to discover that our communities have only had police as we know them for a little over 200 years. Even then, it took a little while for Peel’s concept of police forces to make its way to the United States. Since then it has become a norm that many cannot imagine a time before.

In Texas, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club are following in the footsteps of Newton, who was a law major, striving to stay within the bounds of legality. Though the historical Black Panthers had a notable slip-up which led to then Governor Ronald Reagan signing the Mulford Act which prohibited carrying loaded guns in public space. The goal of the Panthers, as they explained it, was to assert the rights of the people to defend themselves against corrupt police, within the bounds of the law. The Huey P. Newton Gun Club says that’s exactly what they are doing today with their open carry protests.

Police have kept a close eye on the protesters, while also trying to keep their distance. One officer we talked to said “there’s really nothing we can do about it. Open carry protests are not against the law.”

Others refused to comment.

For rest of story visit Countercurrentnews

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May 21 2015
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Cops Gone Wild, Undoing Racism

Liberatarians Shown Once Again to be a White Boy Bigot Club

h/t susanthebruce

Two police brutality surveillance and reporting groups have officially distanced themselves from the libertarian-based Cop Block.  Reported by the Austin based Peaceful Streets Project, the groups say that they find the bigotry and overwhelming white male privilege among Cop Block leadership to be problematic and unresolvable.

In particular, as quoted below and in the statements from WeCopWatch and Anti-Media, key players in the New Hampshire libertarian, Free State Project group are named, in particular the founder of Cop Block Adam Mueller of Manchester (aka Ademo Freeman) and Chris Cantwell who moved to Keene to be a part of the Free Keene libertarian commune in Keene, New Hampshire.

Adam Mueller came to New Hampshire sometime around 2010 and started Cop Block, as a fellow from the Koch Brothers funded anarchy-capitalist training school, The Institute for Humane Studies based at George Mason University.  With Koch money in hand, Adam founded a group to harass Manchester’s city police, in particular with a juvenile incident of “chalking” the city police department building and putting up a stink when arrested.  His arrest for resisting arrest called attention to the anarcho-capitalist call to annihilate the “police state” and also made Mueller a small-time folk hero.  For awhile he had a web page with his letters from the Valley Street Jail posted by friends to further his martyrdom. [Editor’s Note: anyone can search the internet for more information, we prefer to not promote their pages here]

Cop Block attracted a lot of press and negative attention in Manchester during 2010 from their antics.  Many Manchester residents and the police department who have worked hard to undo years of bad relations between the police and the Manchester community had mixed feelings about Cop Block and its bent on pushing libertarian ideology and not confronting deeper social issues.  The disassociation of the Cop Block group was inevitable as the foundation of the libertarian ideology is one based on the denial of systemic oppression of any sort.  Libertarians believe that one’s failures in life or society can only be explained by one’s own personal failures.  Therefore libertarians consistently claim that the calling out of racism, sexism or other bigotries has no root in reality.  Libertarians only recognize “state based” oppression.  They target their critique most sharply on institutions founded to address social oppression and systemic inequality claiming that this in and of itself causes oppression and thus should be deconstructed.

Naturally the outcome of such a worldview would be that an organization such Cop Block would eventually be called out to be a fraud on its face.  Cop Block and its founding member with Koch Brothers financial support, has demonstrated the key weaknesses within anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism in that they believe the only really oppressed groups are white males whose hegemony of the existing social system is being challenged by “special interest groups”.  Thus its no wonder that as the article below describes, Cop Block supporters and founders would be silent on the core issues of police brutality; systemic racism and classism.  Its also no wonder that Cop Block founders and supporters would promote and display open and shameless contempt against women and non-white peoples.

This distancing shows a real developing maturity and growth among cop-watch groups across the country and also their committment to fighting the systemic social problems that cause police brutality and increased militarization.

WeCopwatch and Anti-Media distance themselves from Cop Block

Cop Block is a largely libertarian police accountability organization that was an initial supporter of the Peaceful Streets Project. From the beginning, many members of Cop Block (especially Pete Eyre) supported the Peaceful Streets Project. Their initial support was very helpful in allowing us to spread awareness of our efforts to take on police abuse, corruption, crime, and misconduct in Austin and in select other cities. However, in the past few years both the Peaceful Streets Project and Cop Block have changed in some pretty remarkable ways.

First, the Peaceful Streets Project was started with a vision of helping to bring about a society free of state-sponsored institutionalized violence. Never were we about making friends with the police, nor were we very concerned about non-state violence. Although some of the lead organizers wanted to, as an organization we deliberately shied away from many of the social factors that help feed aggressive and violent policing, as well as the social factors that helped feed violence in the streets. In particular, we avoided issues of race and gender. Our willingness to stand up to the police state while ignoring racism and misogyny allowed many unsavory people to rally around us. Many of those people; who were eager to focus on DUI checkpoints, marijuana laws, and SWAT raids; surprised us when they inexplicably but vigorously rallied behind white people who killed unarmed black people. This became most obvious in their rabid support of George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin in 2012.

By 2013, Antonio Buehler began to acknowledge more and more what co-founders Harold Gray, John Bush, and especially Kaja Tretjak had been concerned about when it came to non-state forms of oppression. Buehler used his position of relative influence to begin speaking out about issues of race and gender, and soon found that many of the followers of Peaceful Streets Project were attacking him. Many supporters encouraged him to disregard these issues in order to keep harmony among police accountability activists, but Buehler had come to recognize that opposition to only state oppression, and not the social oppression that helps fuel the ability of the state to harm people, was a fool’s errand. The police are a problem only to the extent that the structures and hierarchies in our society allow them to be.

Things came to a head later in 2013 when Bush called out a homophobic facebook post, and then Buehler called out some racist and sexist facebook posts. This brought out vicious attacks from many who were at the intersection of some or all of the following groups: Cop Block, anarchocapitalists, Men’s Rights Movement, and Neoconfederates. One semi-popular libertarian blogger named Christopher Cantwell led the charge against the “White Knight,” “Social Justice Warriors” who dared to take offense at overt forms of bigotry. Soon, Buehler had hundreds of racist and sexist people attacking him for taking a stand against racism and sexism. Buehler responded by disassociating with everyone who was willing to associate with Cantwell, and this included Cop Block founder Ademo Freeman and many other members of Cop Block. Buehler was also forced to sever ties with people who had set up Peaceful Street Project facebook pages in various parts of the country.

Since then, the Peaceful Streets Project has gone to great lengths to acknowledge how bigotry helps fuel oppression, and how we (as a largely white male group) can use our privilege to help undermine that oppression. We have sought out other groups that better reflect the populations being most abused by police (such as the Austin Justice Coalition) so that we can ally with them and support them in the struggle. Further, we are much more proactive in calling out bigoted behavior within our group, as we recognize that wonderful contributors had left the Peaceful Streets Project in the early years because it had previously been an unsafe space for them.

Cop Block, however, seems to be going in the opposite direction. Instead of calling out bigotry in the ranks, they have tended to ignore it. While Cop Block claims that as a decentralized organization they cannot control the actions of their members, they do allow unilateral decisions if those decisions are made by the founder, Freeman. Further, while they claim they cannot do much of anything about the bigots in their ranks, as libertarians and anarchists they know very well the power of ostracism. Instead of ostracizing the bigots, they choose to embrace bigots such as Cantwell. And while they may try to claim that they don’t concern themselves with social oppression, and only state oppression, many members of Cop Block became silent when it came to the killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, and they instead focused all of their outrage on people who rioted or looted in response to police executing unarmed people.

In recent days it has come to our attention that Ademo Freeman has gone completely off the rails. There is plenty of information circulating on the web about some extraordinarily disgusting behavior that has personally harmed individuals who did not seek to harm him, that we will not rehash here. WeCopwatch and Anti-Media, both of who were collaborating with Cop Block, have publicly distanced themselves from the organization. We commend them for doing so. Fighting the police state and holding police accountable cannot be done if we don’t hold each other accountable, first. We hope that other groups will do the same, and that the many decent people in Cop Block will push the bigots out of the organization.

At Peaceful Streets Project we are less concerned about what happens on the internet than we are what happens in the street. We look forward to continuing to engage in direct action tactics that will help change the culture of society. We look forward to continuing to partner with organizations who want to end the police state – and who are willing to be smart enough to strike out against all forms of oppression that stand in the way.

And yes, we also distance ourselves from Cop Block.

WeCopwatch statement: http://wecopwatch.org/wecopwatch-cuts-ties-with-copblock-org/
Anti-Media statement: http://theantimedia.org/behind-our-decision-to-leave-cop-block/

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May 19 2015
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Undoing Racism

Cornel West: Why Malcolm X Still Speaks Truth to Power

From Smithsonian online
by Cornel West

Fifty years after his death, Malcolm X remains a towering figure whose passionate writings have enduring resonance.


Malcolm X was music in motion. He was jazz in motion, and, of course, jazz is improvisation, swing and the blues. Malcolm had all three of those things. He could be lyrical and funny and, in the next moment, he’d shift and be serious and push you against the wall. The way he spoke had a swing to it, had a rhythm to it. It was a call and response with the audience that you get with jazz musicians. And he was the blues. Blues is associated with catastrophe. From the very beginning, from slavery to Jim Crow, that sense of catastrophe, of urgency, of needing to get it out, to cry out, to shout, somehow allowed that fire inside of his bones to be pressed with power and with vision. He never lost that.

 The button bearing an image of Malcolm X—created after his death as an act of commemoration—is in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, a talisman of his loss. 

Let me talk about that loss. Just before he was shot in New York on February 21, 1965, Malcolm was setting up his own mosque. He was a Sunni Muslim leader. When we think what it means to be a revolutionary Muslim in this day, when people are looking for ways Islam can be compatible with democracy, his assassination robbed us of that. He could have been a model of what it means to be a revolutionary Muslim, in the way in which Martin Luther King Jr. became a revolutionary Christian.

It’s a fascinating development that could have taken place, and both perspectives could have begun to overlap.  In fact, Malcolm was a Muslim but he invoked Hebrew prophets, Isaiah, Amos. He invoked Jesus, emphasizing that perspective of looking at the world from below, echoing the 25th chapter of Matthew: What you do for the least of these—the prisoner, the poor, the stranger, the widow, the fatherless, the motherless, the weak, the vulnerable—has lasting value. ​
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-malcolm-x-still-speaks-truth-power-180953976/#LQe4ChZEixhpgsqR.99
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Preview thumbnail for video 'Black Prophetic Fire

Black Prophetic Fire

In an accessible, conversational format, Cornel West, with distinguished scholar Christa Buschendorf, provides a fresh perspective on six revolutionary African American leaders: Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Malcolm X, and Ida B. Wells.

h/t Reg Clark


 

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Feb 11 2015
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Undoing Racism

Jay Smooth on “Black Respectability” commentary from Don Lemon

Jay Smooth of illdoctrine.com “Black Respectability” from August 2013.  He’s replying to commentary from pundit Don Lemon on the issue of “black respectability”, you know the trope that all that black men need to do is present a more respectable appearance and attitude to the public (that is what pleases white middle class culture) and everything will be perfect.  Even though this video is now almost two years old, the issue still burns.  Also, Bill Cosby, before he hit his own wall on respectability, used to love to trot this out while waving is finger at “young black men”.

Its victim blaming.  Its also what women do to each other as well, or American Indian folks or any other group that experiences oppression.  Some folks of any of those given groups will decide for whatever reason, to take on the role of the moral superior one.  These folks have opted to climb up the hierarchical ladder of oppression to get a little further up the line and in the process step on their own people’s heads.  Its victim blaming and it needs to be called out again and again and again just as Jay Smooth does here to Don Lemon, enjoy:

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Feb 02 2015
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Undoing Racism

The Day the Klan Messed With the Wrong People

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Scooped up from Daily Kos, a great story about a community in North Carolina that stood up against the Klan.

More than likely there exist many stories like this but they are not often told in our white dominated, racist culture, so although this happened long ago, its still worth telling and still inspiring to this day.  Also, note the link at the conclusion about another such rebellion against racists that happened closer to home, in Worcester, Mass.  Enjoy:

The Day the Klan Messed With the Wrong People

by Daily Kos contributor, gjohnsit,

“You saw those cars coming, and you knew who those men were. They wanted you to see them. They wanted you to be afraid of them.”
– Lillie McKoy, former mayor of Maxton talking about the KKK

By the mid-1950’s the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum and the KKK decided they had to fight back. Their campaign of terrorism swept through many of the southern states, but largely fell flat in North Carolina.
James W. “Catfish” Cole, the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, decided he was going to change that. Cole was an ordained minister of the Wayside Baptist Church in Summerfield, North Carolina, who regularly preached the Word of God on the radio. His rallies often drew as many as 15,000 people.  As Cole told the newspapers: “There’s about 30,000 half-breeds up in Robeson County and we are going to have some cross burnings and scare them up.”

Cole made a critical mistake that couldn’t be avoided by a racist mind – he was completely ignorant of the people he was about to mess with.

Dr. Perry was a black doctor in Monroe, NC, and helped finance a local chapter of the NAACP. One night at a meeting, the word was received that the Klan threatened to blow up Dr. Perry’s house. The meeting broke up and everyone went home to get their guns.

 Sipping coffee in Perry’s garage with shotguns across their laps, the men agreed that defending their families was too important to do in haphazard fashion. “We started to really getting organized and setting up, digging foxholes and started getting up ammunition and training guys,” Williams recalled. “In fact, we had started building our own rifle range, and we got our own M-1’s and got our own Mausers and German semi-automatic rifles, and steel helmets. We had everything.”

Many of these men were veterans of WWII and didn’t scare easily. Men guarded the house in rotating shifts and the women of the NAACP set up a telephone warning system.
On October 5, 1957, Catfish Cole organized a huge Klan rally near Monroe. Afterward the decision was made to move on Dr. Perry’s home.

Read the rest here: The Day the Klan Messed With the Wrong People

 

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Dec 05 2014
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Undoing Racism

Why I Hate Anti-Racist White Allyship

While enjoying all the the glorious world has to offer, Eunice occasionally takes the time to help out the coloreds.

Sometimes one just runs across nuggets of truth and beauty in the most unexpected places, hiding in small corners, waiting to be discovered.  Such is the way in which we ran across the musings of Kathryn Brown.

In New Hampshire where the population diversity in most of the regions runs about 1% it has traditionally been easy for most in New Hampshire to assume racism happens elsewhere.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Racism happens as an attitude; its an American construct that none of us can escape and therefore, all of us have a responsibility to root out if we want the just society we claim to want.

Kathryn Brown advises white folks, from her perspective on how to begin to assist in deconstructing racism and also, why sometimes that struggle needs to stay within the ‘white’ community because ‘white’ folks have plenty of work to do.  She isn’t saying she hates white folks or their wanting to share in the struggle and their desire to fix things; just don’t assume you are of a special class of person (becoming a more privileged person actually) because you want to do this work.  Its our responsibility anyway as citizens of planet earth and members of the human race.

Why I Hate Anti-Racist White Allyship

I keep hearing conversations, reading online and in my own inboxes questions from white people about allyship relating to Ferguson and issues of race. “What can I do?” “Why not all lives matter?” “Is this only for black people? Why?” “Do you even want support from white people? If so why is everything prefaced with Black?”

I appreciate this dialogue. I appreciate the support. The improvements we have made as a country and the battles we have won would certainly not have happened without multi-racial support. Including white support. Freedom summer is one example. Many white people have told me this is the first time they’ve grappled with these issues on a daily basis. Thinking about race and feeling attacked or excluded because of it can be maddening. If there is anything we can all agree on it’s that. Thank you for your support and reflection.

However, I hate the notion of anti-racist white allyship. I actually hate the notion of allyship all together- it implies that attacking oppressive systems is the natural duty of oppressed populations. Have you ever heard anyone say black anti racist? No because it’s implied and accepted that someone black would be against racism. Why? Because it’s assumed that’s a natural by product of their day to day reality. Nothing chosen or worth of exaltation.

Thus, It also implies that to be a white person against oppressive racist systems means being an exception (read exceptional). It norms NOT being anti racist.  It gives credit and recognition to whites who choose to engage in anti- racist work. There is no place for ego or exceptions in anti-racist work. [italics editor]

To be black means daily having difficult conversations and grappling with the realities of systems and institutions at best not designed for you to win and at worst designed for you to fail. It is not a choice. It is not an exceptional Facebook worthy experience. It’s a byproduct of birth.

A recognition of white privilege is not condemnation to hell. Privilege takes on many forms and comes as a result of choices we make and choices we didn’t make.

I was on an airplane about to miss my connecting flight. So was the lady sitting next to me. She was in a wheelchair. I wasn’t. As a result of nothing I did my privilege in this case meant being able to sprint off the plane and catch my flight. She couldn’t. She didn’t. She had been traveling over 24 hours. It sucked.

The thing that sucks about privilege is that sometimes you have it, you benefit from it and there’s nothing you can do about it. I wasn’t trying to prevent her from catching her flight. I wasn’t trying to rub it in her face when I sprinted up as soon as wheels touched down. I was just operating within my normal context . My normal privilege and the ableist systems designed for me to win.

At times, white privilege is oppressive and undermining to people of color. Even from those with the best intentions and efforts to check it. It just is. So yes- I think it’s important to have all black spaces to organize. I think it’s important to have multi- racial coalitions as well.

I also think it’s as important if not more important for white “allies” to organize in white communities. To talk to their co-workers, family members and friends. I find it frustrating that many whites seem to enjoy the exceptional status that commonly accepted notions of anti-racist white allyship encourage but refrain from difficult conversations and confrontations with those who are not of color.

True solidarity in my mind means leveraging your privilege to improve the spaces and communities you’re a part of black or otherwise. True solidarity means continual reflection on white privilege without co-opting conversations about black oppression to make it about the inclusion of whites.

True solidarity means a recognition of universal humanity. We will never move beyond divisive systems if we continue to celebrate white anti-racist allyship as exceptional.

I’ve ranted enough- check out David Leonard (often writes for the root) if you’re interested. He writes about this a lot .

Kay Bee
Kathryn Brown lives in Atlanta, Georgia, is a writer and lover of the finer arts and has a blog, Musings of a Quarter Life Gypsy.

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Dec 02 2014
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Undoing Racism

NYC Prosecutors explain and critique Michael Brown Case : “For Real Though”

Two former prosecutors, Nicci and Nicole from New York City do the traditional sitting on the front stoop to give a critical chat about how the Ferguson police department and then the grand jury bungled the case from the beginning.  Applying their knowledge and experience both give a breakdown of the process in layman’s terms.

While many may be experiencing emotional overload about the Micheal Brown case, these ladies present a very cogent and factual argument and detailed breakdown of the typical process for a criminal investigation (which is what the act of shooting someone should have triggered immediately even in the case of law enforcement).

Nicci and Nicole have a Youtube show “bgirlmovement” that posts regularly on Youtube.

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Nov 25 2014
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Undoing Racism

Manchester Marches for Mike Brown

Folks in the city of Manchester and surrounding areas disgusted with the grand jury verdict have decided to make their voices heard.

Michael Brown is seen on a tie worn by his father during the funeral

Photo from Reuters news service, mourners at Micheal Brown’s funeral.

 

On Saturday at 1:00 pm people will meet at Veteran’s Park to possibly do a small march and some sharing as well about their thoughts about the murder of Mike Brown and the fact that his murderer has been set free.

Veteran’s Park is located downtown on Elm Street between Central and Merrimack Streets. There will be plenty of parking around on Elm, Central and Merrimack Street.

Bring your friends, bring signs that express your outrage and be ready to express your outrage at this latest injustice against innocent citizens in this country.

For more information please see the Facebook event page at:

Manchester Marches for Mike Brown

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Nov 03 2014
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Undoing Racism

Senator Mary Landrieu Reminds Southerners of that Peculiar Institution

Yesterday an NBC reporter asked Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu why Obama’s approval ratings in the south were consistently so low.  Without hesitation Senator Landrieu (Democrat) responded after noting that while the south has strong economic ties to the oil and gas industry, there’s something else, “I’ll be very, very honest with you. the South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans. It’s been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader.”

No kidding.  The degree of vitriol, blaming and shaming that has been directed at Obama has surpassed anything in history, besides possibly presidents that deserved such treatment such as Franklin Pierce or Richard Nixon.  Couple that with the resurrection of Jim Crow type threats, such as hanging nooses in front yards to using racist stereotypes to demean and degrade the president, one has to wonder sometimes what century people are living in.

No doubt the Republicans don’t like being called ignorant bigots, but look at their policies and the statements of many politicians and especially the expressions that burst on the public scene within Tea Party rallies.  Someone called the dog whistles so loud they all came running out of the pen.  Now here we are with Obama having served two terms and experiencing obstructionism unlike any other president, save possibly prior to the civil war when the south drew together in opposition to the threat of abolition.  But this is 2014 isn’t it?  Why do southerners and conservatives draw back and bare their teeth when anyone dare mention the ‘R’ word: Racist!  The attacks on Landrieu for her comments contain all the predictable smear.

Being called out can get pretty uncomfortable, especially when its true and you’ve got no possible way to evade the obvious.  Hence the “conservative” who supports policies that deny the existence of racism in this country, that want everyone who suffers from racism or inequality to just “get over it”.  Sure, but why can’t conservatives just “get over it” with being called out for denying history? (Oh wait, there’s more recent evidence of Republicans not being racists! Check out this from Alternet!) Possibly because getting over it would mean then addressing issues that persist that relate directly to the construct of division of people and communities by skin color in order to keep bondage and general oppression in place.

slave bracelets

America will be forever chained to its past until it deals with it and heals the wounds.

Considering that Africans, although kidnapped and held against their will, managed to build the south and provide much of the profit for the northern merchant class as well for at least a good 200 years, you’d think the south might have a wee bit of gratitude.  If one adds to that the period after emancipation when black folks still experienced a system that locked them into a state of servitude by skin color separation and social ghettos one would wonder why anyone would even dare to deny that a system of race based oppression grew in this country.   The mansions and plantation houses from Virginia to Mississippi visited by people all over the country are usually fawned upon for their splendor and architectural beauty.  Does anyone recognize or attempt to understand the pain and suffering that went on at those places? The unpaid hands who built them?

There are so many questions that must be asked if justice will ever be reached on the damage caused by slavery and the social system derived specifically to keep it in place and everyone in their place; including poor white folks.  Instead,  when any mention of the former “Peculiar Institution” and its relationship to the south occurs, an unprecedented howl of righteous fervor rises from below.america be like

Unlike most other accusations of racism directed at the south or conservatives in general, Landrieu’s cannot be shunned as mere criticism from uppity northerners or carpet-baggers, because she is actually one of their own.  Landrieu has had the audacity to break the unwritten code of the south wherein public figures shy away from public discussion relating to that Peculiar Institution and Reconstruction.  You can talk all day and the rest of your life about the “The War of Northern Aggression” and how President Andrew Johnson’s quick work turned Reconstruction into Deconstruction and put former rebel officers (treasoners) back into political positions and returned a defacto culture of slavery to the south.  But never ever mention that the south had anything to do with forcing an entire mass of people into bondage and hard labor to build the original American aristocracy, both north and south.

There’s too much at stake as everyone knows, as every white southerner has always known.  As every white southerner who ever inherited any wealth derived from the antebellum period knows, admission of guilt is only the beginning to opening the floodgates of justice.  As always, those who beat their chests the loudest about something usually have the most to hide. In this instance, the so-called “pro-liberty” and “pro freedom” party would rather keep the rate at which liberty and freedom are meted out, under their sole control.

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