SHIRLEYSHERRODOMGOMGOMG

If you don't know who Shirley Sherrod is by now, get your head out your gluteus!

As a recap, on Monday, Andrew Breitbart, conservative commentator, posted this video of comments Shirley Sherrod made to the NAACP at an event a few months ago. Media outlets (coughFoxNewscough) pick up on it, Bill O'Reilly calls for her to resign, the USDA (her employer) forces her to resign that day via her Blackberry in her car. The NAACP piles on her, she's basically marked as a racist, and that's that.

...Until the full video surfaces, and...my goodness, she's taken out of context! Everyone goes in a tizzy; the White House apologizes for condemning her, and so does the NAACP. Fox News commentators state she should have her job back, and the USDA offers her just that (which she hasn't accepted as of this date). Panic ensues, and fingers point everywhere...I mean, how could this happen??? There's no racism in America, right???

(How does racism happen in 2010 America?

I thought it ended when we gave that Obama guy the election!)

What more is there to say about this that hasn't been said? I'll give my thoughts, just because I know you care:

1) Breitbart needs to fact check (as he said that he got the tape edited already), or he's a race baiter...considering he caused controversy by showing an edited video of people from ACORN, the community action group, giving advice to prostitutes. Although that video was heavily falsified, ACORN could never recover. As a result, I'm leaning toward the latter. This guy is a bigger problem than those Fox Commentators and Rush Limbaugh. They use him for material, making them pawns in the grand scheme of things (big pawns, but still pawns indeed). He's made more of an impact on the Obama Administration as a result. As much as it's B.S., it's smart on his behalf.

(...I don't think he likes my kind.)

2) Obviously, everyone and their grandmothers overreacted. With that being said, let's take a look at the Obama Administration. Well, Maureen Dowd did, and made a great point about how the majority White administration rushed too soon in condemning Sherrod. It seems like they're too concerned with Obama pushing anything for the advancement of Blacks that would come off as racist, to where certain matters like this one are completely botched.

3) When certain chapters of your organization complain about matters like greeting cards, or get enough exposure over time, there's going to be a backlash. Even with the edited video, the reactions of certain NAACP members made this "good" for Breitbart to "use," considering the recent resolution passed by the NAACP condemning racist elements within the Tea Party (which may be most likely is true). That recent exposure made this and unfair, but logical, revenge move.

4) Whether left for right, our mainstream media can easily facilitate this kind of misinformation. with our attention going every which way now in this Information Age, the old guard need something to garner ratings. What a perfect firestorm they picked up!

I'm too lazy to think of anything else. Besides...this story is overkill.

Race-Baiting video editing: A Tea Partying reason why...America is Racist!

So the verdict in the Oscar Grant trial? To no one's surprise, Johannes Mehserle was found guilty of...Involuntary Manslaughter! Now indeed, it could be valid that Mehserle intended to get his taser instead of his gun (even a friend of Grant's testified that the officer claimed he was intending to use his taser beforehand). With that being said, a couple of things still stand out. From the article itself:

"Prosecutors in Los Angeles have not won a murder conviction in a police shooting case since 1983."

In addition, as I had mentioned earlier, there were ZERO Black jurors. Last I checked, there are more than ZERO Blacks in Los Angeles County (quite a few, in fact).

Now I know that laws vary based on jurisdiction, but this guy's going to get similar time as Plaxico Burress (granted, Plax did plead guilty). At least Mehserle apologized, so everything's ok, right?

There's always the lifetime of guilt he'll have, but...getting off reasonably easy for killing a Black guy: a tragic reason why...America is Racist!

Police target Blacks? REALLY????

Thanks to a recent study by the Drug Policy Alliance, it has been "discovered" that Marijuana Law Enforcement disproportionately targets the youth, especially Black youth (I suggest you check it out, it has some cute graphs). The highlights from the study:

 In every one of the 25 largest counties in California, blacks are arrested for marijuana possession at higher rates than whites, typically at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites.

 U.S. government studies consistently find that young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than young whites.

 In Los Angeles County, with nearly ten million residents and over a quarter of California's population, blacks are arrested at over triple the rate of whites. Blacks are less than 10 percent of L.A. County’s population, but they are 30 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession.

 These racially-biased marijuana arrests are a system-wide phenomenon, occurring in every county and nearly every police department in California, and elsewhere. The arrests are not mainly the result of personal bias or racism on the part of individual patrol officers – who are doing what they are assigned to do.

 Marijuana possession arrests have serious consequences. They create permanent "drug arrest" records that can be easily found on the Internet by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies, licensing boards, and banks.

 The "scarlet letter" stigma of criminal records for marijuana possession can create barriers to employment and education for anyone, including whites and middle class people.

 Criminal records for marijuana possession severely limit the life chances of the poor, the young, and especially of young blacks and Latinos.

So WHY is this the case? I'll let the study take over (emphasis on what needs to be changed is mine):

"Based on our studies of policing in New York and other cities, we do not think the arrests are mostly a result of personal bias or racism on the part of individual patrol officers and their immediate supervisors. Rather, this is a system-wide phenomenon, occurring in every county and nearly every police department in California and elsewhere. Police departments deploy most patrol and narcotics police to certain neighborhoods, usually designated 'high crime.' These are disproportionately low-income, and disproportionately African-American and Latino neighborhoods. It is in these neighborhoods where the police make most patrols, and where they stop and search the most vehicles and individuals, looking for 'contraband' of any type in order to make an arrest. The item that young people in any neighborhood are most likely to possess, which can get them arrested, is a small amount of marijuana. In short, the arrests are racially-biased mainly because the police are systematically 'fishing' for arrests in only some neighborhoods, and methodically searching only some 'fish.' This produces what has been termed 'racism without racists.'"

You know, it was suggested by a (White) friend of mine (this may be too complicated of a thought, seriously) that...maybe the police could just search the neighborhoods more evenly, and not fish? Just an unreasonable thought, I know.

Another suggestion comes from the leaders of the California NAACP; they want to borrow a page from Peter Tosh's book (album, actually) and "Legalize It." Of course, that would make cops find something new to fish out young minorities for...

So what happens when many of these minorities from low-income neighborhoods get arrested? They pay a fine of $100, plus court costs, admit guilt to a misdemeanor, or they can't afford to pay and get jailed. Either way is tough to recover from, because...

"Twenty years ago, misdemeanor arrest and conviction records were papers kept in court storerooms and warehouses, often impossible to locate. Ten years ago they were computerized. Now they are instantly searchable on the Internet for $20 to $40 through commercial criminal-record database services. Employers, landlords, credit agencies, licensing boards for nurses and beauticians, schools, and banks now routinely search these databases for background checks on applicants. The stigma of criminal records can create barriers to employment and education for anyone, including whites and middle class people. Criminal drug arrest and conviction records can severely limit the life chances of the poor, the young, and especially young African Americans and Latinos."

Continuing on...

"At some arraignment courts, people are played a video tape that introduces the arraignment process and says they can have their conviction record 'expunged.' Those who return to court to do so learn they have to file their own expungement petition with a $120 filing fee. Unless they speak to an attorney, most people are not told that, contrary to popular belief, an expungement does not erase a criminal record – it merely changes the finding of 'guilty' to a 'dismissal.' The criminal record simply states that the case was dismissed after conviction. So, although people can legally say that they have not been convicted of a crime, they still have a 'rap sheet,' and a simple background check will show they were arrested and convicted.

A criminal record lasts a lifetime. The explosive growth of criminal record databases, and the ease with which those databases can be accessed on the Internet, creates barriers to employment, housing and education for anyone simply arrested for drug possession. As a result, a misdemeanor marijuana arrest in California has serious consequences for anyone, including white, middle class, and especially young people.

For young, low-income African Americans and Latinos – who use marijuana less than young whites, and who already face numerous barriers and hurdles – a criminal record for the 'drug crime' of marijuana possession can seriously harm their life chances. Some officials, such as U.S. Representatives Steve Cohen and Sheila Jackson Lee, have termed the stigmatizing effect of criminal records for marijuana possession a modern 'scarlet letter.' These marijuana possession arrests, which target young, low-income Californians, serve as a 'head start' program for a lifetime of unemployment and poverty."

And this, my friends, is how you continue a system that has a reasonably efficient way of keeping us down.

Police targeting: A systematically, institutionally biased way why...America is Racist!

In more college news...

Apparently, at one time, a school from the South named a dorm after the founder of the KKK in Florida, and the name stayed intact safely, until several weeks ago, when this paper by Dr. Tom Russell was published. It gives some good insight on one William Stewart Simkins, a Colonel for the Confederacy who taught at the University of Texas from 1899 to his death in 1929:

"By 1868—the year that the states ratified the 14th Amendment—Colonel Simkins saw that 'the negroes became bolder, incendiary harangues were heard everywhere, white women could not appear on the streets without escort, and domestic duties were performed with a ready pistol at hand.' He also observed that 'Equal rights began to assume the form on insistence on social equality. . . .' In his 6,700-word article for the alumni magazine—titled “Why the Ku Klux”—Professor Simkins explained that 'to meet this saturnalia of crime and insolence; to suppress this volcano on which our women and children were nightly sleeping; . . . arose the "Invisible Empire." 'The Klan,' he noted, 'was composed of the best young men of the land, soldiers of the Southern army, many of them heroes in battle, and now as fearless in their duty as they had been in war.' 'Our mission,' the Klansman said succinctly, 'was the protection of our women and children.'"

Those Negroes, what were they thinking with their aims for social equality? Anyway, after forming the Florida KKK, which like other chapters went dormant, Simpkins becomes a professor at the University of Texas, and time does not change his views on Blacks:

"During the following academic year, Colonel Simkins’s [1914] speech was the main event on the most important American day for feasting and prayerful reflection. His speech, titled 'The Ku Klux Klan,' was the centerpiece of the first-ever celebration of Thanksgiving Day on campus. Well over three hundred students crowded into campus headline was 'Simkins Gives Famous Lecture on Ku Klux.' To his appreciative student audience, Simkins explained that 'We had to protect the women and children of the State against the ignorance and lust of the negro office-holders.' He concluded his address, the Daily Texan reported, 'with eloquent praise of the South, and urged the young men present to be loyal to their homeland and their Nation.'...His exhortatory speeches about the Klan pre-date by at least one year the 1915 reinvention of the Klan in Georgia; Texas might compete with Georgia as to which state deserves credit for the rebirth of the Klan."

So of course, when the Brown v. Board of Education rules in favor of desegregating schools in 1954, what does the University of Texas do? Name a new law school/grad school dorn after this guy. Nice intimidation...but the real travesty that hasn't garnered as much controversy is their "admissions" policy:

"The narrower plan for admissions that [Dean of Admissions Henry Y.] McCown suggested on May 1954—nine days after the Brown decision—included requiring that African-American students seeking admission to undergraduate professional programs first spend a year taking required courses at either Prairie View University or Texas Southern University. McCown explained to Wilson that the 'procedures for handling admissions for the Graduate School are well established as we have had many applicants for graduate work. In the undergraduate area,' he noted, 'we have not accepted any Negro applicants for work in the professional fields except in Law.' Because of Brown, he predicted—correctly as it turned out—there will be 'added interest in [African-American] undergraduates gaining admission.' McCown suggested that 'we should give some consideration to the procedures for admission of undergraduates.' Here, he explicitly expressed his goal and suggested a plan. 'If we want to exclude as many Negro undergraduates as possible,' he offered, 'we could require applicants for professional work not offered at Texas Southern University or Prairie View to first enroll in one of the Negro schools and take at least one year of the academic work required for all degrees.' McCown then revealed the fear that he sought to allay: 'This will keep Negroes out of most classes where there are a large number of girls.' If McCown could push African-American students in undergraduate professional degree programs to black universities for the coursework required of all undergraduates, then the young white women in classes such as Freshman English would not have to share classroom space with African-American men, nor would white men have to compete with the African-American men."

Oh, so slick! Of course, we are talking about Texas in the 1950s, so this isn't a big shock here. Things gradually changed over time (albeit that doesn't mean they've been FIXED). What I picked up from this is two things:

1) The ignorance we have in having parts of history forgotten over time. As Russell wrote:

"In addition to the two portraits of Professor Simkins, the law school also has a brass bust of Professor Simkins. The provenance of this sculpture is unknown. For most of the 1990s when I taught at The University of Texas, the bust adorned the reference desk of the Tarlton Law Library. Students used to pat Simkins’s head and rub his nose for good luck, just as visitors to Florence rub the snout of the boar sculpture Il Porcellino to guarantee a return visit to that great Renaissance city. The law students generally had no idea who Professor Simkins was, and the bust remained on the reference desk until a newly hired librarian of color with a sense of history insisted on its removal."

This is example #998746453 (a minor one) why we need to stop thinking that because extreme forms of racism happened on a mass level a long time ago, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about what happened, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about the fact that it still exists today, and we help to facilitate it with our lack of knowledge and action!

Ahem...on to point...

2)From the words of the author himself (emphasis done by me):

"Since a university professor gave my paper to a television reporter in early May, a controversy has raged on the easier issue of the dorm's name. Initially, UT administrators resisted renaming, but last Friday, UT President William Powers announced that he will ask the regents to rename the dorm."

Texas: an "Everything is Bigger" reason why...America is Racist!

Racial Bias in Academia??? That CAN'T be possible!!!

Of course it can be! Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Professor of Finance at Syracuse, breaks it down about how two schools, Emerson College and Harvard, tend to not grant tenure to minority professors. In detail:

"In 129 years, Emerson granted tenure to just three black scholars, with two of them having to sue in order to obtain the position. What is saddest is that this is a common theme around the country. One example would be the hiring practices of Elena Kagan, the recent nominee to the Supreme Court. Out of 29 tenured or tenure track hires at the Harvard Law School (where Kagan was dean), 28 of those hires under Kagan's watch happened to be white."

Of course, only getting tenure by suing! Good thing I'm not going on that career path, and I'm in an industry that doesn't discriminate (oh, wait...).

Anyway, another finding of the study revealed that there was a "lack of understanding" by faculty when it came to the historical discrimination of minorities in America (I thought they were supposed to be smart!). Watkins goes on to break it down intellectually, but I'll give you my two cents:

In my time at my alma mater, I had one more professor than Watkins ever did, but she taught Africana Studies! As is the case of the lack of understanding of the past, many Whites may not understand the effect of just having one person in an authoritative manner in a group setting that can relate to you, based on some aspects of culture that is associated with the same skin color. Many other Whites do get it, and they make sure that it doesn't become the case, seeing that as a threat to the power stranglehold they have in this society. On that thought...does anybody notice that these two schools are NOT in the South? We're talking two New England schools, in a democratic hotbed of the nation, with Democrats (or liberals) comprising of the faculty (remember, our Democratic President nominated Kagan for the Supreme Court). Dare I ask it...Democrats form the North can be racist???

Props to Emerson College for hiring an independent panel to determine these findings...but is this actually going to be a pathway toward proper changes?

Liberal Northerner Academic Elites: A surprising (to you maybe, but not me) reason why...America is Racist!

BP Can't Take Blame Well...

...so when they finally get around to saying "we screwed up," they do it by pimping out a Black dude to face the heat and vitriol of the American Public:

Darryl Willis, the VP of resources for BP, has become the public relations spokesperson for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He's been making the rounds on TV the past month, doing what he can to quell the firestorm against BP. Just a little fishy how none of these guys decided to have a widespread response...

Big Oil: A polluting reason why...America is Racist!

Facebook Is Racist!

Courtesy of Lamebook.com...




Facebook posts: a narcissistic reason why...America is Racist!

The Immigration Law Wave Continues...

...to Freemont, Nebraska. I didn't know there was a wave of illegal immigration there...or is it even about that? So, illegal immigrants are barred from housing and jobs within Freemont limits. Sounds good in theory, but I wonder how it'll be enforced...

Believe it or not, I can see both sides of the issue here.

It would be nice to keep our infrastructure intact, and allowing more people, especially not in the fashion that was set up by the books, is a threat to that, whether it be due to crime, jobs, resources used, debt accrued, etc.

On the flip side, when the majority of the people coming in (legally or not) are NOT of the same culture as the White Male Judeo-Christian culture that comprises the power structure of the aforementioned infrastructure, and said infrastructure was created as a result of Europeans coming here and taking land that did not originally belong to them, and when more waves of them came in the last century, it was naturally more controlled due to a natural liquid barrier, under less duress (although there was a good deal) than current immigrants, do you really expect people to abide by the rules that were set up as a result of a bad example of immigrating here?

Fear of the Browning of America: an undocumented reason why...America is Racist!

More Courtroom Racism

Meet Curtis Flowers. He's been tried six times for murder (That's possible??? I guess so, if you're Black and in Mississippi). As referenced in the link, He was convicted twice before (in 1997 and 2004) and those convictions were overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Three other instances resulted in mistrials, including the 2007 trial where "five African American jurors voted to acquit and the seven white jurors voted to convict." Is that really a surprise there?? I think I said a thing or two about juries, especially in the South. Also, there's no surprise that the juries have ties to the case in the small community of Winona, Miss, which could always influence the outcome itself. The article also details how a young Black female law student who was pulled over without committing an infraction while driving to the courthouse for the trial, while to White law students were not (every part of this story makes me think: "just look at the state, and that's all you need to know").

The outcome of the sixth trial? Curtis Flowers sentenced to death, of course. I wonder what the Mississippi Supreme Court will do this time.

Of course, if Mr. Flowers did commit the crime, the situation is different (although the racial biases still exist). With that being said, going through unprecedented legal lengths to take a Black man's life? A emotionally taxing, financially draining, decade and a half long reason why...America is Racist!

It's Been Awhile...

...like that cheesy "Staind" song. I don't wish to alarm my audience (of one), but racism still goes on, even when I don't talk about them. Here are a few examples of what occurred during my hiatus:

Ignorant outrage over a mural with faces that are too dark: a reason why...America is Racist!

Not allowing illegal immigrants (c'mon, you know what kind) from helping out with the worst offshore oil spill in American history: a reason why...America is Racist? I could see that leading to a host of problems, like what to do with them after the cleanup, but refusing help in a time of need? I have a little gripe with that.

Police brutality: an OBVIOUS reason why...America is Racist!

A Congressman from Iowa (shocker!) accusing the President of favoring Black people, while citing an incident that was resolved a year ago, and neglecting to mention the fact that previous Presidents favored White people: a reason why...America is Racist!

A White Man from Texas (again, shocker!) killing a Black Woman and dragging her body with his truck: a NO-BRAINER reason why...America is Racist!

For a slight moment, I actually thought that if I didn't talk about racism, it wouldn't exist...jokes!

In more serious news...

Hip-Hop Wired has been all over the Oscar Grant murder trial. As noted here, no Black jurors have been selected in the trial of his shooting death, where Johannes Mehserle, a former Bay Area Rapid Transit official, and a current White guy, is accused of the New Year's Day 2009 killing. I may be wrong, but I thought the jury pool was supposed to be reflective of the demographics of the area where the trial is supposed to take place. I also think that there just might be a Black guy or two in Los Angeles (11.2% of the population, according to the Census Bureau). Would it have been too much to take away one White guy and have one Black guy??

The deal is, in situations like these, where a White person harms or kills a Black person, Blacks are usually excluded from the jury pool, because they are the ones who are most likely to say that the cannot separate race from the conditions of the crime. Now I understand that not EVERY White-Black conflict is racially motivated, but is it a stretch to assume that some are? There would be no point of a "hate crime" if that wasn't the case. So if that is the case, why should race ALWAYS be excluded? That can create a loss of objectivity at times (read: White dudes getting reduced time, if any). Now I understand where the hate crime can be overdoing it; if you hate someone to kill them, your bias on them because of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. doesn't really matter. Hate in that situation is hate. In this situation, if it can be determined that he had a negative bias toward a guy because of his race which prompted him to reach for the gun instead of the taser, I think that race should be a factor. Excluding a Black person from the jury pool because of that thought is not fair. I don't know how the questions are answered, but maybe if they were put so eloquently like yours truly, there would be more Blacks in the jury pool...

...or maybe not. As The New York Times reported last week, a new study by the Equal Justice Initiative determined that Blacks and other minorities were excluded from juries in the South (shocker!), for a number of reasons, like:

Seeming "arrogant" and "vocal."

Not appearing to be "sophisticated."

Looking "like a drug dealer."

If you don't believe me, scour the study yourself. There's a find option there, and the drug dealer reference is on page 17. Here's another cute excerpt:

"For example, in Albert Jefferson’s capital trial in Chambers County, Alabama, prosecutors segregated potential jurors into lists titled “strong,” “medium,” “weak,” and “black,” and then struck all 26 African Americans on the black list. The trial judge found insufficient evidence of racial bias. Mr. Jefferson was tried by an all-white jury and sentenced to death."

Do I really need to type more?

Segregated jury pools: a reason why...America is Racist!

Starting off lightly...

The Los Angeles Chapter NAACP (Why is there still a C there??) has a real axe to grind today. Let's see, is it...

The fact that there are more Black men in prison than in college? Nope.

The fact that the average White family has three times as much wealth as the average Black family? No dice.

The fact that...well, you get the point. Here's the REAL beef!

Even if the voices might be a bit jive-ish, way to be off base, NAACP! You couldn't find another issue to hold a press conference for that was more serious, and more importantly...accurate? Congrats, now you give White people another reason to accuse Blacks of inciting racism, which leads to a blind eye towards...racism.

Hallmark cards: a reason why...America is Racist?? I may be smoking, but I don't think so!

Greetings!

Hello world,

I just thought I'd shoot out a things on my mind, as a Black male living in America. I see a bunch of stuff out there about everyday that makes me realize how racist our society still is. I'm fully aware that it's been worse in the past, and it's worse in other areas of the world, but I don't feel like what we have today should be ignored. I love bantering about race related issues in America (especially coming from a Black man's perspective, since...that's what I am), and I figured I'd finally do something about it in a therapeutic manner. My stuff will probably be slanted towards Black-White relations, but this isn't meant to be a "kill Whitey" deal. I'm fully aware that racism exists to every race, including Whites, but for the most part, I can only speak from my perspective.

With that being said, it's time for me to point out why...America is Racist!