Showing posts with label African American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label African American. Show all posts

Monday, July 23, 2018

Racist Rant/Hate Crime in Charlotte

Another day in Trump's America.












A white man in Charlotte, North Carolina, stormed into the territory of a family and began shouting at the homeowners because they had a “F*** Trump” sign displayed in their lawn.
An expletive-laden video of the incident showed the man in the family’s lawn. At first, he argued with the homeowner and absurdly said the sign upset him because he didn’t like the fact that his children saw the word “F***” as they drove by his house.
The man then bizarrely claimed that he is a Bernie Sanders’ supporter and voted for him in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. However, just seconds later he adopted a racist tone – something that Sanders has repeatedly denounced.
Along with the sign that criticized Trump, the homeowners had several other boards pinned in their lawn which included slogans such as, “Black Lives Matter” and “Refugees welcome home.”
“It smells like g*ddamn weed in your entire f***ing house, that’s why the cops are coming right now, motherf***er! I’m gonna get you, n****r! N****r, n****r, n****r!” he yelled as he went towards his truck.
A female member of the family who was recording the video then went outside in an attempt to capture the number plate of the truck on camera while the man continued with his racist tirade.
“I built this country! And y’alls’ house smells like f***ing weed! I smelled it when I was walking up here!” said the racist man.
He then hopped in his truck and drove away.
As the video went viral, information regarding the man started coming up and the hash tag #LawnSignLarry emerged on Twitter.
People on social media tracked down the number plate and identified the bigoted man in the video as Cullen Heald. It was also reported that the truck the man had is reportedly registered in the name of his father.



The bigot's name Cullen Heald
Protesters held a vigil at the couple's house in Charlotte this week.  Thank goodness for that.

Here's the video of the racist bigot:




Many years ago, a Filipina by the name of Keely chronicled a list of racist and sexist incidents toward her while living in Charlotte for seven years between 2004 through 2011.  Here's her story:

Posted On: 8/11/2012 9:19:45 AM
I lived in Charlotte for 7 years and even finished college there. Horrible place if you're Asian or just not prejudice. I once worked somewhere where my favorite clients, a couple, told me they were moving. I was shocked. They told me it's because they didn't want their newborn growing up in such a racist city. They were both Caucasian, and your average middle to upper-middle-class family. It pained me to see how real it was when people of the same race as the majority who were ignorant toward me for years, saw the same thing I had. In many ways it was quite refreshing too. In 7 years living there, I had 1) a suited and well-dressed Caucasian male (I'd call him a man, but a real man wouldn't be racist) with two other professionally dressed of the same, all with long, trench coats, pass by me as I left The Fox and Hound restaurant and actually say to me, "That must be a hard job!" I didn't pass them until a few blocks away from the restaurant and I wore a very modest close to the knee skirt and a nice modest top that didn't even show cleavage. That a** made me feel low, bringing himself up. He wanted to think Filipinas, even one born and raised in the South in the US, were all mail order brides and prostitutes. 2) I walked in a commercial tire/oil shop and the guy on the phone was speaking at regular pace, normal, not too fast not too slow, just normal. Suddenly, he gets off the phone and says, "Maaaayyyy Iiiiiii heeellllllpppp youuuuuuuu???" I wrote the company, they called me back, I told them I didn't want to sue just wanted to let them know how stupid he was, and they fired him, and gave me several discount coupons...but I never returned. Not even to this day to another one. But I was glad for their formidable attitude. 3) I brought my then boyfriend's dog into a vet, I walked in and no one greeted me. I sat thinking they're busy in the back, even hearing voices and not even muffled. The door chime even rang and it was a very small clinic. Then a Caucasian enters, same door, same chime sounds, and out comes the receptionist. 4) I was in a grocery store. Quick stop. I see two well-dressed, in suits again, gentleman across the aisles looking over at me. They had to be in their 50's. One looked over his shoulder at me and then back at his friend and started saying, fairly loudly, "Ching chang chong..." I was so appalled, I walked halfway over to him and asked loudly in clear English, "DID YOU JUST MAKE FUN OF ME?" Tail between his legs, he said a stupid answer of "No." 5) I was at the mall, and as soon as I stepped on an escalator, a man passes me and says, "Konichiwa"...I'm so American, I guess, that I probably didn't even spell something he believes I know, correctly. 6) I was in a restaurant, they had karaoke, I was asked by someone who was pointing to the karaoke DJ, "Oh, is that your husband?" 7) I was in another restaurant, a former military guy sits at my table without asking, mind you, I grew up around military people and never once had anything remotely of this calibre happen to me...I tell him I just came to eat alone and if he'd mind not sitting down with me. He threw the chair a few feet, slammed it back and left the table. 8) I was seated with a colleague who invited me out with his friends. Halfway through dinner, the question of what to do came up for after dinner. When I ran down a list and mentioned karaoke, one of his friends said this, "Us white people, we Caucasians don't like karaoke, we don't do that!" My colleague never breathed anything to me during or after, or while at work. I asked him later why not, he still didn't know what to say. It was the worst stunner I had as it was within the first few months of moving there for college. I probably have a few more events, but you get the picture. I gave it 7 years, with 3 being after college. I couldn't take it any longer, when the last straw was with a different company and my stand in manager while our manager was out of town yelled at me to "SIT DOWN" when I was tired of her yelling at me and I had to stand up to leave and quit. I had enough of this that racist town, I married a Caucasian, I have a half-Chinese/half-Caucasian step son, and I now live in what turned out to be another very white community, but with no racist remarks whatsoever. Must be because I am up North! Thank God for that!




Sunday, March 26, 2017

Missing Black Teens in Washington D. C.

Please share, this is sad that so many children are missing in one city.

There are several missing black youth in the Washington D.C. Area. Here is a listing of 13 of them. Any info please call Washington Metropolitan Police Department@ 202-727-9099.

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Andrea Shea King..Said Blacks Should Be Hanging From A Noose...





The following report comes from Right Wing Watch, from the organization, People for the American Way:



WorldNetDaily commentator and fringe radio host Andrea Shea King wants to punish elected officials who plan to skip Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial address to the U.S. Congress tomorrow…by putting them to death.
King said on her radio program last month that such officials shouldn’tW just “pay with their jobs” but should also “pay with their lives.”

That's extremely racist and genocidal.  The Right Wing media is grasping at the straws to attack President Obama and if they couldn't directly attack the president, they cowardly attack any Black leader or celebrity.

MrSuperboy has done a brilliant job in analyzing that no-good woman.

What are your thoughts on that latest salvo?




Thursday, April 17, 2014

Alabama State Representative Alvin Holmes "Controversial" Remarks About Multiracial Relationships/Families

Angry, adoptive parents rally in Montgomery: Angry, adoptive parents rally at the state house in response to a controversial statement by Rep. Alvin Holmes last month.

Read what Ms. Peden has to say regarding Rep. Holmes remarks regarding transracial adoption:




Rep. Alvin Holmes remarks about adoption are hurtful as well as untrue

Suzanne M. Peden

As a Clinical Social Worker in the state of Alabama since 1985, and the owner of a licensed child placing agency in Helena since 2001, A Angel Adoptions, I am truly heartbroken by the remarks of Representative Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, during a legislative debate over a bill to ban abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat.

His statement that "Ninety-nine percent of the white people who are sitting in here now, if their daughter got pregnant by a black man, they are going to make their daughter have an abortion" is simply not true. I have been working with pregnant women, babies, and adoptive families in the field of adoption for 29 years and my professional experience does not support his remarks.

Today, more than ever, Alabama and the rest of the nation are seeing an increase in interracial relationships, marriages, and children born who are of mixed racial heritage; President Barack Obama is a great example.

Additionally, the infertility rate among women/couples is at an all time high. I currently have two childless interracial adoptive couples who live in Alabama waiting for an adoptive placement. Last year I placed twelve infants who were of African-American or African-American/Caucasian heritage with adoptive couples who were of Caucasian or mixed ethnic heritages. I have no shortage of adoptive family resources for any race child.

If Rep. Holmes believes his opinions are in fact true then he needs to step up his research. Adoption professionals, birth parents, adoptive families, and adoptees are very upset by his statements that only give negative press to our state! In fact, it is my belief that a caucasian woman pregnant with an African-American/caucasian child in any state is more likely to parent that baby than to have an abortion or make an adoption plan.




Suzanne M. Peden is executive director of A Angel Adoptions in Helena.



State Rep. Alvin Holmes did not start his call to the radio show by talking about white families adopting black children. Instead, he attempted to focus the discussion on interracial marriage, claiming, “First of all, my statement, that I made was that the majority of white people in Alabama was against interracial marriage.”
Representative Holmes said his belief is based on a November 2000 vote in which Alabama voters overturned a 100-year-old law that prohibited interracial marriage, but which Holmes claimed a “majority of whites” voted against. That 14-year-old vote is apparently what he’s still basing his opinions on today.
He's just talking about the conservative segment of Alabama's electorate that is resistant to multiracial relationships and families.  Sometimes, Rep. Alvin Holmes is right.  But the problem with his logic is that it's not just conservatives/Southerners that are resistant to the idea.  It's also liberals/non-Southerners, those who claimed to be progressive on most issues yet have a big problem when it comes to multiculturalism/interracial relationships in their families.

This is not to let right-wingers/conservatives off the hook, for they're more active in opposing interracial/inter ethnic relationships, families, multiculturalism in general.  All you have to read the venomous response to President Obama, the Cheerios commercial, the hateful comments on various conservative message boards such as American Renaissance, Breitbart, Freerepublic, Steve Sailer/VDare, Heartiste, The Spearhead, etc.

Hear what he said before the Alabama State Legislature regarding the hypocrisy of anti- abortionists when it comes to abortion and race.



Then watch the racist hypocrite Sean Hannity's remark:



Shawn Hannity have some nerve lecturing Blacks about bigotry when he's clearly is one!

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Why I Cannot Say That Hemings-Jefferson Relationship is Romantic

Why I Cannot Say That Hemings-Jefferson Relationship is Romantic(Updated)

I cannot in the whole world say that the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is one of romance. I'm sorry I'm not buying into mainstream media and pundits history revision. These were the same people who venomously deny that Jefferson coerced and abuse Sally Hemings, let alone an involuntary relationship. There are still many who totally deny the Hemings-Jefferson relationship to this day. Don't these people see before their eyes the many complexions Black Americans are today? They are not the products of recent couplings, but of coerced and abusive relationships between Black women and White men during slavery, segregation, and Jim and Jane Crow. My friendly blogger Ann said in her commentary:

"Until the day comes when an enslaved woman can have a say-so over her body, the children that come from her body, and how and when she can decide herself what she will or will not be able to do with her body, the word mistress will never be used by me in the same sentences with the words slave and master, regardless as to whether it is Thomas Jefferson or any other white slave master."

Not only Black women suffer the indignity of abuse, rape, and sexual exploitation by all men, but they were routinely deny respect and equal protection under the law(read At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle McGuire).  Antimiscegenation laws were a proof of such indignity. Refusing to be called by their last names is showing disrespect. 

While mainstream media and society are very obsessed over the presidency of President Obama, society doesn't want people to discuss about the other racial mixing that is both very coercive and exploitative. Barack Obama is a product of consensual interracial relationship and marriage, that of a Black man and a white woman. America is more sympathetic and comfortable with that combination although they show contempt toward that combination.  Read Richard Cohen's racist article regarding the DeBlasio family this past November. Then again, they don't pose a threat to the structure of American white supremacy because the white woman who marry black men takes his status.

It's time to talk about this shameful, sordid history instead of sweeping it under the ground as usual.

athmanduk2.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-the-master-and-the-enslaved-black-woman/#comments

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Shawn James, Black Freelance Writer: Critical Thinking About Tamera Mowry-Housely’s EXTRA EXTRA SALTY TEARS

Mr. Housely should have protect his wife and child from racist insults. 


Shawn James, Black Freelance Writer: Critical Thinking About Tamera Mowry-Housely’s EXTRA EXTRA SALTY TEARS

A very insightful commentary on the cyber harassment of Tamera Mowry-Housely's interracial relationship.  Mr. James criticized the scapegoating of Black men by the mainstream media when it comes to racism in interracial relationships.  It's mainstream America that still have a problem with those relationships and they project their hatred of such relationships onto Black men and women.

And another thing, where's her husband when those incidents happened? He didn't defend her against those trolls who didn't like their being together. Those trolls weren't Black. They are more than likely nonblack people disguising themselves as Blacks to vent out their racist bs on message boards and social networks.

Here's another perspective on the Tamera Mowry-Housely's situation by Ed of Dream and Hustle:

http://dreamandhustle.com/2014/01/ok-lets-call-out-whats-really-going-with-tamera-mowery-tearful-interview-on-own-about-her-interracial-marriage/

Friday, June 07, 2013

HATEWATCH: NEW RACIAL INCIDENT HITS TEXAS TOWN, SITE OF TRUCK-DRAGGING MURDER | BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS

HATEWATCH: NEW RACIAL INCIDENT HITS TEXAS TOWN, SITE OF TRUCK-DRAGGING MURDER | BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS: New Racial Incident Hits Texas Town, Site of Truck-Dragging Murder

by Don Terry on June 5, 2013


After watching a surveillance video of two white male police officers slam a black woman’s head into a countertop and yank her to the floor by her hair in the town lockup, the Jasper, Texas, City Council voted unanimously on Monday to fire the men, less than a month after the brief but violent encounter on a Sunday morning in May.

Why is this one not being reported on national news?  Black women also suffer police brutality along with Black men and children. 

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

OMG! Son of a Prominent Republican Politician(John McCain) Married an African American Woman


John McCain's son married Capt. Renee Jessica Smith over the weekend.  Guess who attended their wedding?  It's none other than the perennial loser, Mitt Romney!  It's karma!  Scions of Republican/Right-wingers are getting stabbed in the back!  Their racist/classist/sexist ideologies are being exposed for what they are, disgusting pieces of propaganda.  I wonder if their white nationalist/supremacist/HBD friends of theirs think of their family members marrying Blacks and Browns, therefore contributing to the browning/tanning of America.

Already, racist right wingers at number 1 and number 2 are working up a storm over this one.

Here's the rest of the story of the wedding at:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/sen-john-mccain-son-marries-san-francisco-article-1.1361776

Friday, May 31, 2013

Racists Very Upset Over Interracial Family in Cute Cheerios Commercial

Racists Very Upset Over Interracial Family in Cute Cheerios Commercial

My guest columnist, LILVOKA, later will analyze the motivations behind the bigots and racists hatred toward the innocent family Cherrios ad.

Me(La Reyna) thinks they're taking out on the interracial couple because of most right-wing racists' hatred of President Obama, who is biracial like the little girl in the commercial.  It's a sad commentary in 2013, interracial couples and families are still subjected to racist insults and assaults by the larger community and, I'm going to say it, right-wing Conservatives and Liberal whites as well.  Let's not get this twisted that white liberals are so above racism and white privilege.  They're not.

What are your thoughts?

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Lou Myers Passes Away!

Lou Myers played Mr. Gaines on sitcom A Different World.

A Different World was a sitcom spin off of The Cosby Show. It followed Denise Huxtable to a historically Black college. As Denise explores college she meets Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert. They would later become friends. Denise Huxtable was played by Lisa Bonet. Bonet appeared only on the first season of A Different World.  Dwayne was played by Kadeem Hardison. Whitley was played by Jasmine Guy.

Voice actress Cree Summer, media mogul Jada Pickett-Smith, actresses Charnele Brown and Karen Malina White would later join the show.

One character who made an impact on the sitcom was Lou Myers who had the role of Mr. Gaines, a wise and yet often crafty owner of The Pitt Diner.He played the mentor of Kimberly Reese, Freddie Brooks, Lena James and Charmaine Tyesha Brown.

Lou Myers died today according to the Associated Press. TMZ reports that the actor died on February 19 at Charleston Medical Center in West Virginia after undergoing a heart-related emergency and falling into a coma. He had previously been hospitalized in December for pneumonia. AP reports that Myers was 76 years-old.

"A Different World" ran from 1987 to 1993 in which the characters attended a historically black university.

Myers starred on the show alongside Lisa Bonet and Jada Pinkett. In his later years, Myers would also make memorable appearances in numerous other television shows and films such as "The Wedding Planner," "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," "Tin Cup" and "All About the Andersons."

Myers is survived by his mother and a son.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Growing Minority!




This isn't going to make some happy. And yes, I mean the arm chair warriors who lambast the Black and Hispanic/Latino communities.

May 2012, is a historic event.

For the first time White (non-Hispanic) children are born less than those who are minorties. That means that a faster growth of minority (Black, Latino and Asian) children are being born.

It's a changing of demographics in the United States. To make this clear, the country is getting browner!

 Courtesy of  the al-Jazeera United States Bureau.




Thursday, October 27, 2011

Conservatives Create Class Warfare Game| Republican Culture War In A Board Game!




Jillian Rayfield October 27, 2011, 5:55 AM 4300 69

There is no “Go” space in the anti-welfare board game “Obozo’s America,” but rest assured — you can still collect welfare benefits as you pass the “First Of The Month” space.

The game is called “OBOZO’S AMERICA: Why Bother Working for a Living?” with the tagline “The Most Timely and Original Board Game of the Decade!” The website describes it as “a fun fantasy board game based on the preposterous notion that a Marxist clown, running on the vague and shaky platform of hope and change, could become President of The United States.”

The object is to keep collecting benefits while avoiding the “Working Person’s Rut.” From the rather embarrassingly low-tech website:

Get your initial $1,000 cash grant at the First of the Month, then maneuver along Obozo’s Welfare Promenade. Get cash for your out-of-wedlock children. Draw from a stack of Welfare Benefit Cards. Get extra cash from Saturday Night crimes: Gambling, Armed Robbery, Drugs, and Prostitution. Play the lottery and the horses. Get your live-in a job on the Government Cakewalk. Experience the Jail Jaunt. Avoid landing on one of those dreaded “Get a Job” blocks forcing you onto the Working Person’s Rut (Somebody has to pay for Obozo’s Welfare Promenade). 50 Welfare Benefit Cards. 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards. Lots of funny money.

The site features the game’s mascot “Obozo The Marxist Clown” — who also graces the game’s fake currency — and boasts of the “welfare benefit cards” like “you lose perspective and apply for a job, but are denied it. Oboze says: Scream ‘racism’ until welfare lawyer gets you $1,000 settlement.”

In the Economy version of the game, you get “a stack of over a half-a-million dollars in play money (we’re talking serious welfare fraud here), 50 Welfare Benefit Cards, 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards, 30 Out-of-Wedlock Children.” The Deluxe version has a spill-proof surface and the out-of-wedlock children are easier to cut out of the paper they’re printed on.

Here’s the play money:



And the board game:



You can see the full-size board as a pdf here.

The game was created by Ron Pramschufer and Bob Johnson, who run Hammerhead Enterprises in Maryland, and was originally released in 1980 as “Public Assistance: Why Bother Working for a Living?”

“We didn’t invent this game, government liberals did,” Johnson said then. “We just put it in a box.”

In a press release Wednesday, Johnson announced that the game was coming back, claiming it “was forced off the retail market in the 1980s by government officials working with the NAACP, NOW, and other welfare ‘rights’ groups.”

“We intended the game as a parody of government liberalism, with a special focus on the able-bodied loaferism, welfare fraud, and social chaos its domestic policies promote,” Johnson wrote in 2009. “Threatened by the game’s popularity, embarrassed liberals successfully implemented a nationwide government plan to ‘remove the game from the marketplace.’”

The game was entangled in a number of lawsuits after several government officials and the NAACP criticized it as racist and sexist for its depiction of “welfare queens” and other stereotypes. Pramschufer and Johnson first sued (sub req.) a New York City official who sent a letter to retailers urging them not to sell the game, saying “keeping this game off the shelves of your stores would be a genuine public service.” They lost the case and their ultimate appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, but they also filed a suit against the NAACP and NOW, according to the AP (sub req.).

But in the 90s when they re-released the game — complete with a new “Criminal Justice” side of the board — and claimed it had been banned, the Attorney General of Maryland said there was never a ban on the game. “The state wouldn’t have had the authority to ban this game whatsoever,” then-AG Kathy Schultz said (sub req.), according to the Washington Times.



Via Ashley Lopez of The Florida Independent.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Hate Groups Channel Their Rage At Illegal Immigrants and Hispanics/Latinos!

Anti-Latino Hate Crimes Rise As Immigration Debate Intensifies

Antilatino Hate Crime 
Huffington Post writer Cristina Costantini notes the growing right wing rage at immigration reform. The culture war Republicans started includes this and many other noted controversies. Not one of these issues focuses on jobs or the ailing economy.


Juan Varela was shot in the neck in his front yard in Phoenix, Ariz., last May by his neighbor Gary Kelley. Moments before killing Varela in front of his mother and brother, Kelley yelled, "Go back to Mexico or die!" Varela was not an illegal immigrant, but a fifth generation American of Mexican descent, said Carlos Galindo, the family's spokesperson in a phone interview.

In May 2009, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul Flores were murdered by members of a Minuteman vigilante group. The child and her father were both American-born U.S. citizens. Leader Shawna Forde broke into the Flores home in Arivaca, Ariz., with two men she recruited to help her fund her splinter Minuteman organization. After the group shot and killed her father, Brisenia pleaded with the Forde and her accomplices, saying, "Please don't shoot me." One of the masked figures then shot her in the face at point blank range, her mother, the lone survivor, said in her testimony. Forde was convicted of first degree murder in February of 2011 and sentenced to death.

Last November, two Mexican nationals, cousins Alex Cauich and Jose Omar Cauich, were brutally assaulted by a group of white men while standing in front of a bar in San Francisco. Witnesses on the scene heard the assailants yelling "run like you ran across the border" during the incident. Last week, three men with connection to a white supremacist group were convicted in the assault. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, who worked as a police officer in Arizona and California for more than twenty years, told The Huffington Post that he perceives this crime and others like it to be part of rising anti-Latino sentiments around the country.

Recent studies conducted by the National Institute of Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the FBI and the Pew Research Center seem to show that these incidents were not isolated hate events, but part of a greater trend.

The preliminary findings of a congressionally-mandated study by the National Institute of Justice suggest that anti-Latino hate crimes rose disproportionally to other hate crimes between 2004 and 2008. The study estimates that in 2003 there were 426 hate crimes against Latinos, while in 2007 there were 595 nationally.

According to the same study, California and Texas saw the most anti-Latino hate crimes, as well as more dramatic increases of such incidents than other states. Data collected by the FBI also indicates a steady rise in anti-Latino hate crimes across the country from 2003 to 2007.

A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, contends that the number of "radical right groups" in America -- including hate groups, "Patriot" groups and nativist groups -- increased in 2010 for the second year in a row.

Although recent studies indicate anti-Latino hate crimes have been on the rise over the last decade, many believe their numbers are even greater than those reported. Mark Potok, a spokesperson for the SPLC, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that, "one thing to understand is that Latinos, and in particular undocumented immigrants, are among the least likely to report hate crimes because they fear deportation."


RACE AND POLICY DEBATES

Many, including the family members of victims, associate a rise in anti-Latino hate crime and an increase in anti-Latino sentiments with the on-going, virulent immigration debate around the country.

Varela's family in Phoenix told The Huffington Post that they believe his murder was provoked by the heated controversy surrounding the passage of Arizona's S.B. 1070 law two weeks prior. According to Carlos Galindo, the family's spokesperson, Kelley's attorney admitted in court that his client was going to the Varela home on the day of Juan's murder in order to discuss the the family's attendance at an S.B. 1070 protest. Galindo also said the immigration debate created a dangerous environment for Latinos in his state.

"It's gone from a frustration with the federal government not doing their job, to a frustration with the immigrants and with Latinos in general," said Galindo. "People are encouraging this kind of demonization and this culture of hatred which results in violence," he added.

In 9-year old Brisenia's murder, the Associated Press reported that Shawna Forde was motivated to break into the Flores home because she "considered Raul Flores a drug smuggler and wanted to use his drug proceeds for a paramilitary organization to seal off the border to immigrants." According to CNN reports, no drugs were found in the Flores home.

  Raul "Junior" and Brisenia Flores were killed by a minuteman group with ties to the White Nationalist Movement.

George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that he associates the brutal assault of the Cauich cousins and a "recent surge of anti-Latino hate crimes" in his city, with economic factors and the immigration debate. Gascón believes that immigration debates in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina and now Alabama have been "fueled by race-based sentiments."

"It's going to take a lot of good people with a lot of good intentions on both sides of the debate to shift the dialogue away from race, and back to policy," Gascón said.

Mark Potok, the SPLC spokesman, believes that reporting around the immigration debate has led directly to a more hostile environment for Latinos in America because it "focuses a lot of negative attention around Latinos." He explained, "When leaders and politicians get press and promote stereotypes, it encourages others to hate Latinos as well -- so it helps to spread the poison... There are ways of having a debate about immigration without demonizing one group of people."

But while Potok also blames "nativist" groups like Minuteman organizations for spurring hatred against Latinos and immigrants, Howie Morgan, the national political director of the Minuteman Project said in a phone interview with The Huffington Post that his organization has never framed the debate in racial terms.

Shawna Forde, a former prostitute, beautician who has ties to a white supremacist group. Her involvement in a minuteman group that killed Raul "Junior" and Brisenia Flores. Forde is currently sitting on death row for the murder.

"We have never demonized Latinos. In fact, we have been demonized as racists by 'La Raza' -- which means 'The Race' by the way... When we have come across organizations in the Minuteman movement that align themselves with racism, we've thrown them out and repudiated their statements. We continue to make sure this not about race, but about policy. We are a pro-immigrant organization, and calling us racist is simply inaccurate," he told HuffPost. Morgan was referring to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) which considers itself the "largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization" in the country.

But Gascón, thinks the Minutemen are ignoring an "elephant in the room."

"I'm glad the [Minuteman Project's] official stance is that it shouldn't be a race-based conversation," Gascon said in a phone intervew. "But the elephant in the room when you talk about immigration is that a very large number of immigrants come from Latin America. If you start talking about illegal immigration, what comes to mind? Do you think of someone from Eastern Europe or Asia or do you think of a Latino?"

According to a 2009 study, more Americans think that Hispanics are the targets of discrimination in American society than say the same about any other major racial or ethnic group. According to Mark Hugo Lopez, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population, the PHC's studies found that, prior to 2009, African Americans were perceived to be the group most discriminated against.

Lopez also said that on average, Latinos are thinking about discrimination and immigration as bigger issues for their community than they did just a few years ago. In 2010, 61 percent of Latinos believed that discrimination against Hispanics is a "major problem," up from 54 percent in 2007. And in 2010, when asked to state the most important factor leading to discrimination, a "plurality of 36 percent cited immigration status as most important, up from a minority of 23 percent who said the same in 2007," reported Lopez.


In an interview with a local paper, Gilberto Esquivel, a member of the Riverside Human Relations Commission, said that the 50 percent increase in hate crimes against Latinos in California in 2010 was directly tied to the passage of the S.B. 1070 immigration law in Arizona. In Esquivel's county alone, the FBI documented 21 hate crimes in 2010, up from 12 in 2009.

Esquivel believes "anti-Latino and anti-immigrant remarks became more numerous and hateful on conservative talk radio, in newspaper letters to editors and on the Internet."

"The hate is there," Esquivel said. "[S.B. 1070] gives it legitimacy."





Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Minnesota School Faces Lawsuit Over Racist 'Wigger Day'

Redwinghigh

A Minnesota school district allowed a homecoming event called "Wigger Day," during which students wore clothes and behaved in a manner that "from their perspective, mimicked black culture," according to a federal a class action lawsuit filed against the district on Friday.

The suit alleges that despite student council voting on a "tropical theme" for homecoming in 2009, a group of approximately 60 students from the predominantly white school instead attended the event dressed for "Wigger Wednesday" in "oversized sports jerseys, low-slung pants, baseball hats cocked to the side and 'doo rags.'"

"Wigger is a pejorative slang term for a white person who emulates the mannerisms, language and fashions associated with African-American culture," the complaint explains.

Students also referred to the activity as "Wangsta Day" -- meaning "white gangsta" or "Red Winger gangsta" -- and created a Facebook group advocating for the event. (Warning: This Facebook link contains offensive language.)

The plaintiff, former Red Wing High School student Quera Pruitt, an African American, claims that the school's lack of intervention caused her "severe emotional distress including depression, loss of sleep, stress, crying, humiliation, anxiety, and shame." Pruitt filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota on behalf of an unnamed class of "all students who experienced discrimination as a result of Wigger Day." The complaint states the class could include more than 40 people.

Pruitt's attorney, Joshua Williams, says her family hoped the incident would be addressed following "Wigger Day" 2008. While it was never an officially-sanctioned school event, the family discovered "Wigger Wednesday" was something of a tradition.

After the 2009 incident, "[Pruitt's] mom came up to the school, attempted to reach out to the school board, the superintendent, and the principal, but Red Wing's response was essentially to sweep this under the rug and act like it didn't happen," Williams told The Huffington Post.

According to Williams, Pruitt became depressed, quit the cheerleading squad, left student council, skipped her senior prom and even considered dropping out of school.

Pruitt also declined to participate in the school's Martin Luther King Day ceremonies, considering the memorial a "farce." She graduated in 2010 and moved back to Little Rock, Ark.

Williams added that the school district has acknowledged that "Wigger Day" took place in 2007 and 2008, but neglected to prevent the event from happening in 2009.

Red Wing principal Beth Borgen and school district superintendent Karsten Anderson, both defendants in the suit, say the school is committed to creating a learning an environment free from discrimination.

According to a 2009 article on KARE-11, students participating in "Wigger Day" that year were immediately sent to change their clothes, but no additional punishment followed.

Williams, who is seeking $75,000 in damages for his client, did not know whether "Wigger Day" took place again in 2010.

A statement from Anderson obtained by HuffPost says the district "denies the allegations that it has created a racially hostile environment and looks forward to meeting these allegations in court."

Williams says that position is "symptomatic of Red Wing's response to 'Wigger Day' form the onset."

"The students shouldn't have felt empowered to hold 'Wigger Day' in 2009," Williams said. "These students were not disciplined, they were not counseled and they were not punished. This could have been a teachable moment."

Monday, May 03, 2010

A Father's Love

A Father's Love: short film by filmaker Quantae Love featuring positive images of black fathers from an entire community of black fathers. Watch the 9 minute film here:

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/LTHSpecialReport.html

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Gabrielle Union teams up with Bounty to clean up public schools

With actress Gabrielle Union as it's spokeperson Procter & Gamble’s Bounty brand, in partnership with HandsOn Network and the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation has announced the “Make a Clean Difference” program which will unite more than 1000 volunteers to transform the learning environments of 30 public schools in 10 cities across the country.

Read more here: http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html

Friday, April 09, 2010

Katie Washington Notre Dames first black valedictorian

Katie Washington, first black valedictorian at Notre Dame.

In the 161 years Notre Dame has been awarding degrees, never had there been an African-American as valedictorian. Until this year.She’s Katie Washington.

http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/blacknewsblackviews.html

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