Racial Terrorism

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Surveillance Footage Shows Rhode Island Officers Fabricated Assault That Nearly Ruined Man’s Life

by Ricky Riley | July 2016
A Providence, Rhode Island man was charged with assaulting police officers at a night club last year but surveillance footage released this week shows that officers started the raucous. Tuesday, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office announced that 29-year-old Esmelin Fajardo will be allowed to enter a not guilty plea regarding the charges related to a melee in a club during closing hours.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Accountability] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [-ing While Black] [White Privilege]

Things I Didn’t Know

by James Mulholland | May 2019
Nine years ago, I began to slowly awaken to my racial prejudices and white privilege. It was a rude awakening. During the past three years, I’ve blogged about that journey from racial ignorance. Recently, someone asked me what have been the biggest surprises along the way. What do I know now that I didn’t know before? What follows is a short list of some of my bigger epiphanies and the posts where I shared these revelations.

I didn’t know scholars and sociologists believe nearly 100% of enslaved women were sexually assaulted. I didn’t know how much the free access of white men to black bodies was part of white culture. Some sociologists estimate 50% of all children of slaves had a white father. This kind of sexual aggression continued throughout Jim Crow. I didn’t know the conviction of a white man for raping a black woman was extremely rare before 1960. When Rape Was Legal.
I didn’t know that – in some ways – the years after the end of slavery were worse than during slavery. I didn’t know vagrancy laws allowed white people to “arrest and convict” nearly any black person and enslave them. Thousands of black families were torn apart as fathers were sent off to “serve their time” in factories and on farms. The death rate at these prison camps was as high as 50%, meaning that the penalty for “vagrancy” in the south was often death. Worse Than Slavery.

TAGS: [Slavery] [Racial Terrorism] [White Privilege] [History] [White Blindness] [2010’s]

Fighting Hitler and Jim Crow: The forgotten Black soldiers of D-Day

by Rebecca Santana | June 2019
Roughly 2,000 African-American troops are believed to have hit the shores of Normandy in various capacities on June 6, 1944. Serving in a U.S. military still segregated by race, they encountered discrimination both in the service and when they came home. But on Normandy, they faced the same danger as everyone else.
During World War II, it was unheard of for African-American officers to lead white soldiers, and they faced discrimination even while in the service. Black troops were often put in support units responsible for transporting supplies. But during the Normandy invasion, that didn’t mean they were immune from danger….
After fighting fascism in Europe, many African-American troops were met with discrimination yet again at home. Jones remembers coming back the U.S. after the war’s end and having to move to the back of a bus as it crossed the Mason-Dixon line separating North from South. He recalls being harassed by police officers after returning to Louisiana.
“I couldn’t sit with the soldiers I had been on the battlefield with. I had to go to the back of the bus,” said Jones, who went on to become a lawyer and civil rights activist in Baton Rouge. “Those are the things that come back and haunt you.”
tags: [Racial Terrorism] [History] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]

The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’

By Michelle Alexander |January 2020
From mass incarceration to mass deportation, our nation remains in deep denial.
Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. It has been an astonishing decade. Everything and nothing has changed.…
Contrary to what many people would have us believe, what our nation is experiencing is not an “aberration.” The politics of “Trumpism” and “fake news” are not new; they are as old as the nation itself. The very same playbook has been used over and over in this country by those who seek to preserve racial hierarchy, or to exploit racial resentments and anxieties for political gain, each time with similar results.
… It is tempting to imagine that electing a Democratic president or more Democratic politicians will fix the crises in our justice systems and our democracy. To be clear, removing Trump from office is necessary and urgent; but simply electing more Democrats to office is no guarantee that our nation will break its habit of birthing enormous systems of racial and social control. Indeed, one of the lessons of recent decades is these systems can grow and thrive even when our elected leaders claim to be progressive and espouse the rhetoric of equality, inclusion and civil rights.
TAGS:[Racial Terrorism] [Prison System]

Violent Arrest of Teacher Caught on Video; Officers Face Investigation

by Tony Plohetski | September 2018
Officials are investigating an Austin police officer’s violent arrest of an African-American elementary school teacher who was twice thrown to the ground during a traffic stop for speeding and comments by a second officer who told her police are sometimes wary of blacks because of their “violent tendencies.” Video from the previously unreported June 2015 incident was obtained by the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV this week. The video shows the traffic stop escalating rapidly in the seven seconds from when officer Bryan Richter, who is white, first gives a command to 26-year-old Breaion King to close her car door to when he forcibly removes her from the driver’s seat, pulls her across a vacant parking space and hurls her to the asphalt.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [White Privilege]

Men of Color Get Locked Up Ahead of Trials as Dirty Cops Get Slaps on the Wrist

by Kali Holloway | January 2020
NYPD Detective Michael Bergmann filed a report accusing Pedro Barbosa of attempting to run him over with a car. …Security footage later proved that Bergmann had fabricated the whole story, and he eventually pleaded guilty to perjury, making a false statement and official misconduct. Last week—despite unequivocal proof that the then-cop had tried to send an innocent man to prison for more than 10 years—Brooklyn Supreme Court judge Danny Chun dismissed prosecutors’ request for a one-year sentence and instead gave Bergmann a single day in jail, already served, and four years probation. All in all, the case is a sadly typical example of police lies and abuse, and how the criminal justice system is actively complicit in both.
TAGS: [2020’s] [–ing While Black] [policing]

#AltonSterling: 37-Year-Old Man Killed By Baton Rouge PD

by Kirsten West Savali | July 2016
Another black body on hot asphalt, heartbeat colliding with bullets in his chest, breathing becoming labored as an executioner in a uniform steals his life from him. This time, his name was Alton Sterling. This time, he was 37 years old.This time, he was a father of five. This time, he was selling CDs in front of a store. This time, the Baton Rouge, La., Police Department is responsible for his death.There are no new words. There are no new thoughts. There are no songs to sing nor chants to scream that will make this soul-crushing feeling of inevitability go away.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege]

Lifesaving Advice From a Black Woman Held at Gunpoint by Police

by Tonya Jameson | July 2017
As I stared at the officer nervously pointing his gun at me, I realized immediately what he saw: a black person who had no business being in his neighbor’s driveway. Former Charlotte Observer writer Tonya Jameson shows how she was screwing her new license plate into her new Isuzu SUV … before having a gun pulled on her by a Knoxville Police Department Officer.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [-ing While Black] [2010’s] [Policing] [Tips Dos/Don’ts] [Systemic Racism]

Attacks like Portland’s Will Keep Happening Unless We All Fight White Supremacy

by Arjun Singh Sethi | May 2017
Two men were stabbed to death in Portland, Ore., on Friday when they tried to stop their attacker from harassing two women because they appeared to be Muslim. Communities of color experience hate in every aspect of our lives. It braids through our daily existence, just like friendship, work and family. We encounter it in schools, workplaces and public life. And what we fear most is hate violence, the kind that was on full display in Portland this weekend.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [Collective Action]

Ohio Cop Who Fatally Shot Walmart Shopper John Crawford III Won’t be Charged

by Sebastian Murdock | July 2017
The Justice Department said it can’t prove the officer violated the slain man’s civil rights. Crawford, 22 picked up a pellet gun while shopping in the Walmart toy section, prompting a 911 call from a customer who wrongly reported he was loading a rifle and pointing it at children.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [White Privilege] [-ing While Black] [Police Shootings] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism]