Tag: racism

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Police Swipe at Obama Over Tensions

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file photo by Boyd Loving
Some law enforcement officials say president has helped sow distrust between police and minorities

By
FELICIA SCHWARTZ,

BYRON TAU and

ZUSHA ELINSON
July 10, 2016 8:04 p.m. ET

As President Barack Obama prepares to head to Dallas on Tuesday after the deadly shooting of five policemen, he faces criticism from some law enforcement officials that he has helped inflame tensions between police and minority communities.

The White House said Sunday Mr. Obama would speak in Dallas, at the invitation of the mayor, at an interfaith memorial service to commemorate the attack’s victims.

The president has tried to walk a fine line between acknowledging the grievances of activists protesting police shootings of black suspects, and trying to cool some of the anger directed at police officers. Now he also faces complaints that he is partly to blame for creating a culture that some police say demonizes officers.

“The man responsible for the murders [in Dallas] was Micah Johnson, but having said that, I do think the president by his inaction has contributed to a climate where these things can happen,” William Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents about 240,000 law enforcement officers, said Sunday. “This president and his administration absolutely do not have our back and make our jobs more dangerous.”

Earlier last week, Mr. Obama said that complaints by activists and minority-community members about police violence had a legitimate basis. Mr. Obama said the recent police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota should trouble all Americans “because these are not isolated incidents.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/police-swipe-at-obama-over-tensions-1468195494

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Police Shootings : Hold up, folks. Take a deep breath and count to ten….

Dallas police slaughter

July 8,2016

by Jason Vigorito

Regarding the latest slate of devastating law enforcement events…

Let me start off by saying whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa. Hold up, folks. Take a deep breath and count to ten, like kids are taught to do. If you’re “feeling the heat”, then stick your head in a deep freezer until you cool off. Put your thinking caps on for a little while, and get ready to hear some calm, cool, and collected adult rational reflection right now, because I sure as heck am seeing intellect rarely employed today. By those of you who are speaking with maturity, thank you for furthering the conversation; for those of you flustering and blustering, have a seat and take a chill pill because you aren’t furthering the conversation…in fact, you’re emulating the murderous villains you’re against. Do I have your attention yet? I hope so.

Time for some civilized discussion. We are, after all, the most advanced and educated civilization on the planet today, correct? Right then…

1. I, as one person, do not speak for you. You, as one person, do not speak for me. A handful of murdering individuals do not speak for 320 million Americans. Logical consistency.

2. We all connect with the victims of these horrific acts, because these acts can happen to us and/or our loved ones anywhere at any moment. We also connect with the victims’ loved ones and friends, because we have all felt the loss of losing someone, expectedly or unexpectedly, no matter how prepared we think we are.

3. Emotions generally do not, and should not, govern policy, whether it is your individual policies toward the world or the federal government’s policies toward we the citizens. Why? Emotion overrides everything. Emotion blinds. Emotion is the lower order. Emotion is animalistic. Emotion is fickle. Remember, we all want cooler heads to prevail.

4. For these events’ perpetrators, the emotion of anger led to the irrationality of hate. Nearly all the posts I’ve viewed from my family and friends today have been deeply emotional negatively. Anger can easily gain control and override your system. Your anger, expressed via vitriol, more widely opens the door to hate. And we all know the slew of evil things hate leads to.

5. Your Facebook page is yours. Do with it as you see fit. Your FB autonomy is absolute. But when you un-friend people, shut-down dialogue, and attempt to shame disagreers, you place yourself in a mental bubble. Guess who else placed such self-imposition on themselves? Yeah, the horrible killers you rage against. They ignored everyone else, and followed an ignorant path that progressively led to such radicalization that they couldn’t contain such extremes anymore, so they took the lid off their pressure cookers by implementing death and destruction.

6. I know each and every one of you. Aside from familial obligation–which is a non-sequitur for me anyway, lol–I admire and respect each and every one of you, because you all enrich the tapestry of my own life with your own priceless uniqueness, in all your strengths and weaknesses. For you to close yourself off from the world–which includes me–in such a way, you only create and/or exacerbate impoverishment in our lives, decreasing the vividness and vitality of our tapestries. Why would you do that to anyone who does not deserve such treatment?

7. Disagreement is not a bad thing. Rational, substantive, civil discussion leads to self-fulfillment and fulfillment for others. Even if one does not come out on top in a debate, one is still strengthened by the experience through self-permission. Why? You do not have all the answers. No one, in and of himself, has all the answers. Together, we find more answers. We gain perspective. We solidify our principles and acquire new ones. We learn how to overcome our weaknesses and build our strengths.

8. Success is a journey. It is a process. It is in the pursuit that we find our life’s happiness and joys. You don’t find success in pumping out a kid or two, you find success and happiness in the pursuit of raising those children into mature and independent adults. Same idea when it comes to dealing with current events: what were the strengths and weaknesses that we need to build upon and overcome, respectively? You can’t do that through shunning the world and shirking your responsibilities as a productive member of a democratic society. That’s what the killers did. ….And how’d that turn out?

9. There is one universal answer that, ironically, eventually solves all of life’s problems. The one exception to the general rule. Results are not necessarily immediate, though some results are immediate. Results may vary in degree, but they all fall into the improvement category. The momentum itself carries you forward more easily with time. Progress is a guarantee. Self-barricading is incompatible. You ready? Love. Love as a noun. Love as a verb. Love is universal because it is the only emotion–from which all other positive ones flow forth, including sadness (for from whence does sadness derive but joy and happiness fulfilled through love)–that spurs the intellect, and therefore civilization, on to betterment. Love of knowledge, love of intangible wealth.

10. Think about it. The most powerful statement of all time, in all of human history: “For God so LOVED the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall NOT perish, but have everlasting LIFE.” Whether you are a Christian or not, religious or not, that is the most influential declarative statement of all time. It has determined the course of history like no other sentence ever has. And it’s based on Love. Love. Love manifested. Love manifested to overcome. Love manifested to overcome Hate. Love is found in every Faith. Love is found in every one of us. Love is in our hearts. Love is also in our minds and the energy that composes our souls. It is the impetus from which all intellect foundates.

Keep the faith. We all do it together, and our descendants can only….love us.

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Majority of Americans Feel Like ‘Stranger in Own Country’

trump

by MIKE FLYNN20 Nov 20155,902

A Super PAC tied to Ohio Governor John Kasich is annnouncing a new multi-million dollar effort to torpedo Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination.

Trump’s continued dominance of national and state-level polling has vexed the GOP establishment and pushed it to near-panic as voting nears.

A recent survey of public attitudes by Reuters/Ispos, though, suggests caution for the GOP establishment.

Whatever failings there may be in his specific policies, Donald Trump’s campaign has tapped into a strong, visceral feeling of millions of Americans. Seeking to destroy Trump, the candidate, may further alienate the Republican party from a rapidly growing block of voters.

According to the Reuters survey, 58 percent Americans say they “don’t identify with what America has become.” While Republicans and Independents are the most likely to agree with this statement, even 45 percent of Democrats share this feeling.

More than half of Americans, 53 percent, say they “feel like a stranger” in their own country. A minority of Americans feel “comfortable as myself” in the country.

There are no doubt lots of reasons underlying this feelings. Demographically, Americans holding these views tend to be white, older, live in the South and have less than a college education. Politically, they are cordoned off as the white working class. While they rarely attract much attention from the political class, they still represent an enormous block of voters.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/20/majority-americans-feel-like-stranger-country/

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Confederate Flag Memorabilia Sales Boom after Ban

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The Ban on Confederate Flag Memorabilia Is Having One Unintended Consequence…

BY CONOR SWANBERG

The Confederate flag has been under heavy fire following the shooting in Charleston. It’s been removed from major stores like Walmart, Ebay, and Sears.

But now small, independent stores which still sell the merchandise have been surprised with an unexpected consequence—a massive spike in sales.

CNN Money has been actively tracking and interviewing stores that sell the items, such as Flag and Banner, based in Little Rock, Arkansas,

Owner Kerry McCoy has been surprised:

“Somebody in Rhode Island ordered in 50 Confederate (lapel) pins”

“We sold 20 (flags) today and we would normally sell none,”

Another small business owner, Freddie Rich, who runs the Rebel Store in North Carolina, said that sales are “unbelievable right now. This is something I never envisioned.”

He has sold nearly 200 flags in 24 hours, and included this message on his site:

The message reads:

“We appreciate your support during this terribly sad time while the intolerant, the mean spirited, and the uneducated attack our Proud Southern Heritage with a vengeance.

Sorry – we have sold out. Thank you so much – our faith in the South has been renewed!

If you have already placed an order with us – please be patient and rest assured that we are working as quickly as possible to get your order out to you and we will send an email as soon as we ship with the tracking information. We have received over 3,000 orders in less than 24 hours, when a good day for us is 20 orders in 24 hours. We are filling them and shipping in the order in which they were received.

As soon as we are ‘caught up’ with the backlog, we will again have the website back up and running.”

There’s still no verdict on whether or not the Confederate flag will be removed from the South Carolina statehouse grounds, but that hasn’t stopped people from scooping up whatever they can get their hands on after large vendors ceased sales.

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Star-Ledger Ed Board Accused of McCarthyism

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Star-Ledger Ed Board does McCarthyism better than McCarthy

June 25,2015

By Scott St. Clair (https://savejersey.com/ )
The Star-Ledger hit a new low of innuendo and guilt-by-association smear tactics in editorially trying to link racists to the Republican Party. You get an A+ in McCarthyism and dirty tricks, but an F in integrity and respect for any point of view other than your own.The editorial’s not-so subliminal message is that Republicans who disagree with the paper’s editorial board or President Obama on policy do so for racially-motivated reasons.

Why not consider that maybe, just maybe, those who disagree do so because the policies are horrible, not in the national interest and complete failures?

Despite the insistence of some, it’s not a tautology that considering Obamacare a waste of money and a failure is racist. Wanting to secure our borders and control who comes into the country isn’t ipso facto bigotry. And maybe those of us who don’t want to see Medicaid expanded believe it’s too expensive and fiscally irresponsible.

clinton goreSmall and insecure thinking slaps the race card to cripple what should be legitimate debate.To paraphrase the words of attorney Joseph Welch in 1954 when he rebuked McCarthy: “You’ve done enough, Star-Ledger. Have you no sense of decency, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

The True History of the Democratic Racist Party

https://theridgewoodblog.net/the-true-history-of-the-democratic-racist-party/

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White House: Obama stands by use of N-word

Obama-Golf

President lectures about Racism , then uses the N-Word 

By Jordan Fabian

President Obama has no regrets about using the N-word to make a point during a recent discussion on race, the White House said Monday.

“He does not,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “The president’s use of the word and the reason he used the word could not be more apparent.”

The president’s phrasing renewed a debate over who is allowed to use the word and when it’s appropriate to say.

In a podcast released Monday, the president urged the nation to deal with the enduring problem of racism, saying it has not been “cured” simply because it is no longer acceptable to utter racial slurs publicly.

“Racism, we are not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say n—– in public,” he said on Marc Maron’s “WTF Podcast.”“That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/245716-white-house-obama-stands-by-use-of-n-word

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Does Harvard have a secret history as a major force for evil?

Asians Harvard

By Sarah Rose

May 24, 2015 | 7:00am

“Verita$” was a best seller in Korea, author Shin Eun-jung’s native country, because she asks the question that’s hardly ever asked: Why Harvard?

Eun-jung says the third word a Korean baby learns, after “Mom” and “Dad,” is “Harvard.” She argues that this is a tragedy, because Harvard isn’t the global intellectual powerhouse of reputation.

Now, there are plenty of criticisms of Harvard, though rarely the one Eun-jung levels: that Harvard swanned its way to dominance by maintaining a false front of liberalism when it is, in fact, an arm of the governing right.

“Verita$” recites a litany of bad acts: the Salem witch trials, eugenics, a so-called “collaboration” with Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, architects of financial collapse such as Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, McCarthyism, racism, sexism, tyrannical labor practices and “a poison called elitism.”

Her list is long. I might add Harvard produces such venerable alumni as Henry Kissinger, Ted Kaczynski and Dr. Oz.

https://nypost.com/2015/05/24/does-harvard-have-a-secret-history-as-a-major-force-for-evil/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPFacebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow

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Obama’s difficult legacy on race

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By Jordan Fabian – 05/02/15 06:00 AM EDT

From Ferguson to Baltimore, the nation’s first black president is encountering the limits of his power when it comes to healing the nation’s racial wounds.

A series of racially-charged police killings, most recently in Baltimore, are quickly becoming a part of President Obama’s second-term legacy, defying predictions that his election to the White House would help bridge the country’s oldest divide.

Obama appears increasingly frustrated by the situation, this week lashing out at people rioting in Baltimore as “thugs” and “criminals.”

The president has also brushed off critics who say his administration should be taking a more forceful approach toward police misconduct.

“The challenge for us as the federal government is, is that we don’t run these police forces,” he said Tuesday during a Rose Garden press conference. “I can’t federalize every police force in the country and force them to retrain.”

The president has struggled to find the right balance between backing law enforcement and criticizing their questionable practices when police-related deaths of black men occur.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/240843-obamas-difficult-legacy-on-race

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Niece of Martin Luther King Jr: ‘Racism Has Not Been Erased’

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Niece of Martin Luther King Jr: ‘Racism Has Not Been Erased’
Alveda King / @alvedaking / January 19, 2015

“But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” —Amos 5:24

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted this powerful scripture in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. He believed God’s word. He took his Bible—the one President Obama placed his hand on during his 2013 inauguration—very seriously; so seriously that he repeatedly risked his life to proclaim its message of love for God and love for neighbor.

We could use some repentance and forgiveness right now in our shattered society.

My Uncle M.L., like everyone, was far from perfect, but he loved the Lord. It was God’s word that he used to unite a movement and change our nation. For him, religion was the heart of the civil rights movement.

As his niece, daughter of his slain brother, Rev. A.D. King, I am always honored when invited to remember him.

Uncle M.L. was born on Jan. 15, 1929. In remembering him today, I can tell you that he was a kind and gentle man who was used as a strong prophet of God.

Many people called him the “Black Moses” and the “Modern Day Apostle of Love.” As a Baptist preacher, his sermons and speeches reflected his devotion to the Lord and his obedience to God’s call. The themes of his teachings strongly reflected humanity’s need of God’s love, and of human repentance and forgiveness.

We could use some repentance and forgiveness right now in our shattered society.

A black man was elected twice to the White House, but racism has not been erased. The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others remind us that black men and teens, in particular, are still pre-judged by the color of their skin.

When members of the pro-life black community tell the truth about abortion—that the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb—we are accused of racism.

In a 1967 speech Uncle M.L. gave at Stanford University, he spoke of the “other America” and the “daily ugliness” that greets some people of color every day. He would be proud of the many advances and achievements we have logged in the human rights category, but he would still be troubled that so many still live in this “other America.”

There was much speculation about whether or not Uncle M.L. would have taken part in protest marches in Missouri or New York or elsewhere, and he very well might have. But he would never advocate for violence, and he would never walk arm-in-arm with anyone calling for attacks on the police.

His message was one of love and non-violence, and I know it would not have changed in the time between his death and now, because he followed the word of God, and the word of God never changes.

I do know that he would be disturbed—and vocal—about our constantly eroding freedom of religion. Everywhere you look, if the exercise of religion bumps up against a liberal absolute, religion loses.

President Obama has made it a priority to prevent Americans from conceiving children, and when people of faith rise up in protest to this contraceptive mandate, we are accused of waging a war on women.

Forty-two years after Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton made abortion legal, half of America clings hard to the belief that women can’t be equal to men without being able to exercise their right to kill their own children. But people of faith who don’t want to have the blood of innocents on their hands—health care workers most prominently, but others as well—are finding that they have to defend their conscience rights and sometimes, they lose.

When members of the pro-life black community tell the truth about abortion—that the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb—we are accused of racism. The people who target us for annihilation through abortion are praised as heroes. What an upside down world!

The growing controversies surrounding First Amendment rights to freedom of religious and speech are reaching a fever pitch. But we must continue to do what we are instructed in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14: Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.

We must work hard to remember, and remind those who seem to have forgotten, that in all matters of conflict, love, dignity, clarity and communication are key, even when viewpoints differ. Especially when viewpoints differ.

As my Uncle M.L. famously said, “We must learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or perish as fools.”

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics

Sears Shooting Stars Competition 2014

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar @kaj33
April 28, 2014

It’s time to look at ourselves — and our collective moral outrage — in the mirror, says former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Moral outrage is exhausting. And dangerous. The whole country has gotten a severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome from the newest popular sport of Extreme Finger Wagging. Not to mention the neck strain from Olympic tryouts for Morally Superior Head Shaking. All over the latest in a long line of rich white celebrities to come out of the racist closet. (Was it only a couple days ago that Cliven Bundy said blacks would be better off picking cotton as slaves? And only last June Paula Deen admitted using the “N” word?)

MORE

Los Angeles Is Too Weak to Make Donald Sterling RepentSoccer Star Dani Alves Eats Banana That Was Thrown At Him As a Racist TauntMen Charged With Toppling Ancient Rock Formation Avoid Jail Time Huffington PostHere’s An Updated Tally Of All The People Who Have Ever Died From A Marijuana Overdose Huffington PostIt’ll Be Another Girl for Joe Nichols People

Yes, I’m angry, too, but not just about the sins of Donald Sterling. I’ve got a list. But let’s start with Sterling. I used to work for him, back in 2000 when I coached for the Clippers for three months. He was congenial, even inviting me to his daughter’s wedding. Nothing happened or was said to indicate he suffered from IPMS (Irritable Plantation Master Syndrome). Since then, a lot has been revealed about Sterling’s business practices:

2006: U.S. Dept. of Justice sued Sterling for housing discrimination. Allegedly, he said, “Black tenants smell and attract vermin.”
2009: He reportedly paid $2.73 million in a Justice Dept. suit alleging he discriminated against blacks, Hispanics, and families with children in his rentals. (He also had to pay an additional nearly $5 million in attorneys fees and costs due to his counsel’s “sometimes outrageous conduct.”)
2009: Clippers executive (and one of the greatest NBA players in history) sued for employment discrimination based on age and race.

And now the poor guy’s girlfriend (undoubtedly ex-girlfriend now) is on tape cajoling him into revealing his racism. Man, what a winding road she led him down to get all of that out. She was like a sexy nanny playing “pin the fried chicken on the Sambo.” She blindfolded him and spun him around until he was just blathering all sorts of incoherent racist sound bites that had the news media peeing themselves with glee.

They caught big game on a slow news day, so they put his head on a pike, dubbed him Lord of the Flies, and danced around him whooping.

https://time.com/79590/donald-sterling-kareem-abdul-jabbar-racism/