–ing While Black Archives - Tools For Racial Justice

Racial Disparities Opportunity Atlas

Racial disparities in income and other outcomes are among the most visible and persistent features of American society. This map allows you to search by a wide variety of demographics: Household Income, Incarceration Rate, Individual Income, Employment Rate, High School/College Graduation Rate, Hours Worked Per Week, Hourly Wage …

No Charges for Cops Who ‘Accidentally’ Fired 107 Bullets at an Innocent Mom and Daughter

by Andrew Emett | January 2016
Los Angeles, CA – Exposing the double standard between police and civilians, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that no criminal charges will be filed against the eight LAPD officers responsible for nearly killing an innocent woman and her daughter. Although the cops ambushed the unarmed women without warning and fired over 100 bullets without provocation, the district attorney justified the case of mistaken identity due to the fact that the officers involved were afraid and incompetent. At 5 a.m. on February 7, 2013, Margie Carranza and her mother, Emma Hernandez, were delivering newspapers throughout a residential neighborhood in Torrance when eight LAPD cops suddenly opened fire. As Carranza suffered cuts from the flying glass, Hernandez was shot twice in the back while trying to protect her daughter. One bullet exited just above Hernandez’s collarbone, while the other bullet struck her lower back, near her spine. A fragment of shattered glass also flew into her eye.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [Systemic Racism] [-ing While Black] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [White Culture]

BLM Uses Facebook’s ‘Safety Check’ To Declare That We’re In A State Of Crisis

by Zahara Hill | January 2017

“Being black in America is a national emergency,” BLM said. “Black people are being attacked and murdered while doing day-to-day activities. Black Lives Matter launched a website that allows social media users to mark themselves unsafe for being black in America. Referred to as the “Unsafety Check,” Tuesday’s initiative is part of #Reclaim&Resist, the movement’s week of action which spans from Martin Luther King Jr. Day to Inauguration Day. Facebook safety checks are typically used to ensure friends that you’re alive and well after a potentially dangerous nearby incident has occurred. But BLM created its own take on the check to symbolize the general sense of fear plaguing black Americans in the present political atmosphere.

TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Accountability] [-ing While Black] [Advocacy] [Strategies]

Some of Us Are Complicit in Racism

By Rabbi Shai Held | May 2017
Amidst all the carnage, you may have missed the story of Richard Collins. If so, you missed a story that we must not ignore: Richard Collins III, a young black man and a student at Bowie State University, was murdered after he refused to step aside to let a white student pass by.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Faith-Based/Spiritual] [Accountability] [-ing While Black] [Black Lives Matter]

Black Farmer Gets Real in Viral Post About the Type of Subtle Racism He Fears Most

by Kyle Jaeger | May 2017
Chris Newman’s Facebook post called out the counter-protests that were organized after Spencer led a march of torch-bearing white nationalists on May 14. Spencer’s group was protesting the planned removal of a Confederate monument.
While the optics and sentiment of the demonstration were disturbing, Newman said he felt “far less bothered by the flag wavers in this picture than this town’s progressives assuming its race problem has nothing to do with them.” “The former is a visual inconvenience. The latter could leave my daughters without a father.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [2010’s]

‘Mudbound’ Has More To Say About Whiteness In America Than Any Other Trump-Era Movie

By Zeba Blay | November 2017
A person doesn’t have to be hateful in order to be racist. The new Netflix movie “Mudbound,” directed by Dee Rees, is an epic about race in the Deep South in the aftermath of World War II. It is also, in a way, about something that happened a few weeks ago. “The other day,” Rees told me recently, “I was in my pajamas getting ready to walk my dog in the building where I live.” A white guy, “trying to be friendly,” struck up a conversation. “Oh,” he asked, “are you with the dog walking service? Can I get your card?”
TAGS: [White Blindness] [Systemic Racism] [Assumptions] [2010’s] [White Culture] [-ing While Black] [Art & Culture]

Boston Police Data Shows Black Men were Stopped Most Often

by Allison Manning | January 2016
Police released a database of nearly 150,000 civilian encounters. A trove of data released by Boston police shows black males were the most likely demographic group to be stopped by officers in recent years. More than half of those stopped — 56 percent — were black males. In their own analysis, Boston police said “nearly 59 percent of the FIO subjects were black.’’ But about 4.3 percent of the total reports don’t state a race, or the officer checked “unknown.’’ Taking out those blanks or unknowns, the actual percentage of black people stopped among those with a known race is 61.2 percent. Boston’s population is about 25 percent black.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [-ing While Black] [White Supremacy] [White Privilege] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability]

BUSTED: Cops Caught on Video Pepper-Spraying Handcuffed Biracial Girl — after a Car Hit Her

by David Ferguson | September 2016
Police in Hagerstown, MD are under fire after a video surfaced showing them pepper-spraying a handcuffed teen girl after she tried to leave the scene after being struck by a vehicle. The Hagerstown Herald-Mail reported Wednesday that a Facebook video of police manhandling the 15-year-old girl has got the police department scrambling to explain itself. According to Flicker, the girl — who is the daughter of a white mother and a black father — was riding her bike on Sunday afternoon when she was struck by a car.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [-ing While Black] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [White Blindness] [Silencing POC] [White Privilege]

I’m Tired, but I’m Not Finished: Are We Ready to Call it Racism Now?

by Edward Rhymes | June 2015
It seems we live in an American society that is hellbent on euthanizing black hope and injecting our despair and frustration with adrenaline. We abide in a country that counts our lives as cheap, and through brutal conditioning has taught too many us to feel the same. White mass killers are apprehended by police alive, black children, just walking home are not. Nothing to see here, people, it’s just a 12-year-old boy gunned down by police. Keep moving along, citizens, it’s just another unarmed black man killed by a cop. Just stroll on by, folks, racism had absolutely nothing to do with the killing of those nine black people attending a Bible study, even though they were killed by a self-proclaimed white supremacist.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Privilege] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Calling Police] [Black Lives Matter] [History]