Dear Black People, It's not about race~ White People

 

I'm still trying to figure out how the white judge, the white prosecutors, the white defense team, and the white jury got to declare "race was not a factor" in a case about racial profiling, in a state with a documented history of racism.

Strike that.  Yes I do.  The white, male, dominated mainstream media enabled them with their media driven racial stereotypes of the scary black man.

Immediately after the verdict there was not one person of color speaking out about the verdict on TeeVee.  CNN even had Texas Governor Rick "N-word head ranch" Perry of all people on air saying justice is color blind.

President Obama said it was time for a real discussion about race and racism, but I can assure you that won't happen if the media has anything to do with it.

This is the media that forced candidate Obama to renounce, repudiate, and reject Rev. Jeremiah Wright for daring to speak truth to power.

This is the media that forced President Obama to tone down remarks made by Attorney General Eric Holder because he asked if Americans were cowards when it came to discussing matters of race.

This is the media that forced President Obama to have a "beer summit" with the Boston police officer who acted stupidly and arrested Dr. Henry Louis Gates for getting uppity  in his own damn house.

And so on, and so on.

So yes, let's have a real discussion about race and racism.  I mean a real hope-to-die, get it all out in the open discussion.  It's times to drain the poison off, so that this nation can heal.  The whole world is watching.  ~GrannyStandingforTruth

I HOPE the white, male, dominated, media won't stand in the way this time.

Things the Second Amendment to the Constitituion does NOT allow We the People to do

Image Time magazine

 I am still trying to figure out how  a well regulated militia being necessary to a free State, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed on   morphed into... an armed, unregulated populace who have the right to cling to  assault weapons just in the case there is a need to overthrow the government.

Allow me to set the record straight.

The well regulated militia the 2nd amendment refers to were slave patrols, land stealer's and Indian killers...all necessary to a the security of a free state....built with stolen labor on stolen land.

 

The 2nd amendment does not mean we the people can protect ourselves from our government in the event they abuse our civil liberties.

The 2nd amendment does not mean we the people can rise up and over throw the government of the United States of America when they infringe upon our civil rights

 

The 2nd amendment does not mean we the people can protect ourselves, or our homes, from government intrusion.

The 2nd amendment does not give we the people the right to overthrow the government when they take our rights away.

 

The 2nd amendment does not give we the people the right to overthrow our  government when they dismantle democracy.

This is the reality of what we the people must do to protect ourselves from our government.

"To protect ourselves from government, we must improve education and free access to voting and exercising that right to vote, and become the rulers of our government that our Constitution was supposed to make us.  And for good education, we must improve rules governing the media which massively shapes public opinion.  Today, we have 90% of our media concentrated in ownership by 6 or 7 mega-corporations.  The news we get is materially altered for corporate profit and not for truth or good democratic government.
Ultimately, i think that unbridled capitalism (such as ours has become) and good democracy are at odds.  We have become a corporatocracy from a democracy, let's face it."

Today marks one month since 20 children and 6 women were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

 Gun advocates are ginning up fear because it's good for business.

Senator Rand Paul (r. KY) and Rep. Steve Stockman (r. TX) are threatening to impeach the President over gun control that hasn't even happened yet.

Let us march on until victory is won...at the ballot box.

Trayvon Martin Saturday Photo Blog with Commentary

H/T Field Negro

If I had a son he'd look with Trayvon.  Obama Cares.  Therein lies the difference between US and THEM.

"Shoot to Kill" may soon be replacing "In God we Trust" " as US Motto thanks to the Compassionate, Christian, Conservatives.   Who would Jesus assassinate, ma'am?

Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for getting uppity with police in his own damn house.  Maybe if the mainstream media let us have an honest and open discussion about racial profiling instead of turning it into a beer summit, Trayvon Martin would be alive today.

Picture of bluh people who want the government to take care of them, equally.  Picture of black people demanding justice for Trayvon Martin and not food stamps.

White House comments in Trayvon Martin case

Actually, it should read,  the white male who speaks for the White House comments in the case of Trayvon Martin by passing the buck back to the Sanford Police Department.  I wonder what part of the Sanford Police Department is part of the problem doesn't he understand?

What do you want to bet if the Black militia group who wants to arrest George Zimmerman gets involved there will be plenty of comment from the white male who speaks for the White House?

As with the cases of  the Jena Six, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Sean Bell, Shirley Sherrod, and Troy Davis, the first African American President can't take a position, because it might offend 39% of  white voters.

Is it too much to ask the President of the United States of America to stand for something other than killing Osama Bin Laden?  What about the killing of Trayvon Martin ?  His family does not trust the local police department, with good reason.

See this is why I didn't want an African American President, because he's the African American President of everybody but African Americans.

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Welcome to my world~A very personal diary

I had to calm down and do a lot of praying before writing this diary. Yesterday I received the kind of news every black mother, daughter, sister, aunt, grandmother, godmother, cousin dreads. Someone I love was racially profiled by the people who are paid to protect and serve us. Contrary to popular opinion, largely due to media-driven stereotypes, all young black men are not thugs, pimps and criminals, nor do they all look alike.

Stereotypes are a pet peeve of mine. I see the damage that stereotypes do and how it leads to demonetization of innocent people. Stereotypes are fed to Americans like apple pie and hot dogs and some people tend to gobble them up as if they are the truth and nothing but the truth. And white folks tend to cling to every stereotype of blacks as a reality of who black people are as a whole.

This is a true story with names redacted to protect the innocent.

Earlier this week XXXXXXX was attacked by four ZZ police officers. It was 7:30 PM and he was walking home from a restaurant a few blocks from his house. He said he heard footsteps behind him and he started walking faster because he thought he was about to be mugged.

They came from him from behind, pushed him face down into the snow, never identifying who they were. They knocked him around pretty bad, bruising his face and handcuffed him. By then he figured they were police officers and he asked them what was going on. They said he fit the description of a suspect, young black male, 6 ft. tall. Now mind you XXXXXXX lives in ZZZZZZZ, ZZ, so that is the description of mostly every young male. They searched him saying they were looking for a gun, of course, he didn’t have one. He only had his keys and his ID. Once they didn’t see a gun they let him sit up (all this time his face was on the ground in the snow.) They asked him where he lived and worked, when they found out he worked for a TV station, he said their whole tone changed. He said they became polite and started apologizes for any “inconvenience.” Then they let him go.

Needless to say, he was very upset, not understanding why this would happen to him. I told him he could have been Barack Obama walking down that street in Brooklyn and the same thing could have happened to him. Unfortunately, some things never change.

The lawyers at his TV station are looking into it because everyone at his station knows what a good kid (well man) he is.

I realize that it could have been worse, so I thank God that it is only a few bruises. But I am hurt, mad, and I feel like kicking some ZZZ cops butt right now.

I really can’t talk about it without getting too emotional, so forgive me for not calling, we will talk later. In the meantime thanks for letting me vent.

Please keep XXXXXXX and all of our children in your prayers.

This is the America black children and black parents live in. President Obama had the perfect opportunity to address this issue following the arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates but he chose to have a beer summit instead.

Am I the only one saw the the whole thing as some surreal manifestation of the superficial nature of race relations in A-merry-ca? The staging, the forced camaraderie, and --I am sure--- the perfunctory nature of the discussion. Isn't that how we interact with each other on a daily basis?

Quoting GrannyStandingforTruth

Never in a million years did I think I would live to see a black man become President of the Divided States of America. Nor did I think I would live to see Jim Crow and lynching revived under the leadership of a black President either, but well there are some folks in America that are longing for those nostalgic days.

Welcome to my world.

A Horse Head In the Presidents Bed

Remember the scene from the Godfather when movie producer Jack Wolz woke up with the severed head of his prized racehorse in the bed with him? Tom Hagen - Don Vito Corleone's adoptive son, was sent to make Jack Woltz an offer he couldn't refuse. Substitute President Obama for Jack Wolz, John Bohner for Tom Hagen, Mitch McConnell for Don Vito Corleone and the American People for the prize racehorse and you have a modern-day remake of The Godfather.

Tucked away in the massive tax bill Obama is trying to pass in the last days of the current session of Congress -- before a new Republican majority takes over the U.S. House of Representatives -- are several affordable-housing incentives critical to the Gulf Coast and in particular New Orleans. But while Obama has conceded to Republicans by agreeing to extend tax cuts for the wealthy if they agree to, among other things, extend emergency unemployment benefits, there is no word on whether the final bill will include the critical affordable housing incentives written into earlier versions.

Among its myriad tax code provisions, the bill under debate, S. 3793, proposes to extend a low-income housing tax credit exchange program for a year, reauthorize a New Markets Tax Credit program and fund a National Housing Trust Fund meant to pay for affordable rental housing in all states with a shortage, including Louisiana. Introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) in September, the bill has fallen victim to partisan haggling. It still must be passed by the House and the Senate.

Most critically to New Orleans, the bill includes a two-year extension of the placed-in-service date for projects being financed with Gulf Opportunity Zone tax credits created after Hurricane Katrina. Without the extension of the current placed-in-service deadline of Dec. 31, Louisiana stands to lose at least 1,770 units and $398 million in total investment dollars for projects that will not forward without more time, according to Louisiana Housing Finance Agency documents. Another 3,230 units across 66 complexes are in jeopardy across the other Gulf Coast states.

Among the developers relying on the credits to finance post-Katrina housing projects are those building mixed-income communities on the site of the former B.W. Cooper and Lafitte public housing developments. At Lafitte, where 220 units are nearly complete, the failure to pass an extension could cost 430 still-unbuilt units financed through deals that rely on the tax credits and have not yet closed, according to the finance authority. For B.W. Cooper, the end of the tax credit program could kill the 410-unit project completely because none of its financing has closed and construction hasn't started. Project developer KBK Enterprises did not return several calls made over the past week requesting comment. In September, company Chief Financial Officer Mike McCroskey told The Times-Picayune that the company was "at the mercy of the federal government."

Without the extension, Lafitte developers Providence Community Housing and Enterprise Community Partners, will have to come up with a way to replace the revenue projected to come from the GO Zone tax credits. Reached Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Providence reaffirmed the company's commitment to completing the 650-unit project, with or without the credits.

The President didn't cave or capitulate, he did what he had to do in order to free the hostages. The question I have is how and why did the Democrats allow the GOP to take us hostage? Democrats had control of the government for 2 years and didn't do a damn thing. President Obama has not only had to fight the GOP and the white wing media, but he's also had to fight members of his own damn party time and time again.

After a two-hour floor debate, the House passed the DREAM Act along mostly partisan lines, 216 to 198, with 38 Democrats voting against the bill and 8 Republicans supporting it.

It's too late for democratic theatrics It's too late to take a stand and draw a line in the sand. This is what happens when the Professional Left is suppressed. The blame can't be placed entirely on democrats and media, The White House did their part too.

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as health care reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

The White House, constantly under fire from expected enemies on the right, has been frustrated by nightly attacks on cable news shows catering to the left, where Obama and top lieutenants like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have been excoriated for abandoning the public option in health care reform; for not moving faster to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay; and for failing, so far, to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

I want a President who takes a strong stand and fights for it, not one who is a mediator with hostage-takers. I had a feeling we were heading down this road when the media made candidate Obama renounce, repudiate and reject his pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. IMHO that was his first mistake because it set the tone for Eric Holder's Americans are cowards walk back, Henry Louis Gates the police acted stupidly beer summit, and the Shirley Sherrod firing.

I was depressed yesterday, but I woke up to the realization the President had a horse head placed in his bed. He was made an offer he couldn't refuse. I'm not going to write President Obama off, I'm going to continue to support him, help him fight and have his back so they can't put any more horse heads in his bed.

"It's pretty damn embarrassing to be white these days, I can tell you."

A guest post by my sister in the name of love, Chipster


It's pretty damn embarrassing to be white these days, I can tell you.

After we had Professor Gates, who knew his constitutional rights better than to step out his front door and in refusing to do so, infuriated Sgt. Crowley by hampering him in the "performance of his duties" (emphasis on the word performance, in the theatrical sense). Then we had the Shirley Sherrod charade when a desperate white pundit was so eager to make a name for himself that he fabricated news - by ginning up a story of a pioneering community development, human rights activist as a "racist." And she might have been, with understandable outrage at her father being killed by a white farmer, never prosecuted. But instead, she shared her journey of reflection and righteousness, only to have it adulterated by smear tactics accusing her of the very racist thinking she condemned by relating her soulful journey to her audience.

Missed by many in the "racism" was Mrs. Sherrod's actual message: the exploitation of the "haves" by the "have nots." Now, as during the civil war, it is a conflict between moneyed interests, and ordinary people striving to make a living for themselves and their families.

Next, we got to the transparently revolting moments, when overt racism was all out front when a white "helper" woman chastised a black woman caller for lacking a "sense of humor." Seeking help, the caller was taunted with animosity and ridicule by the multiple degreed "marriage and family counselor" who said, "If you're that hypersensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race." No, subtly there: stay separate so we can stay unequal. The melting pot was a nice national ethos when Dr. Laura's Jewish and Italian parents inter-married, producing what Dr. Laura characterizes as a "dysfunctional" family. No kidding.

Maybe it was her hurt and rage at living in that family that fueled her apparent "hypersensitivity" to spousal differences. Exhibiting human empathy means listening with understanding and courtesy, to say nothing of refraining from putrid, volatile epithets; all that was beyond Dr. Laura. Anyone who doubted her intent need only hear her say "baaaalack" to understand it.

Both Shirley Sherrod and Laura Schlessinger had childhood scars. One black, one white. One chose to teach human dignity, the other chose to denigrate it. But then again, comparing Shirley Sherrod with Dr. Schlessinger is no match, not even close.



"...if by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'" --- JFK, NY Liberal Party Nomination, 9/14/1960

"The Constitution does not include a statute of limitations." - WEXLER

NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the NSA may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. You have no recourse nor protection but to call for the impeachment of Bush & Cheney. See the growing impeachment list: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/resolutions-list