To Rain of Havock: Update on the Ayiana Case

To Rain of Havock: Update on the Ayiana Case: "Police who carried out a raid on a family home that left a 7-year-old girl dead over the weekend were accompanied by a camera crew for a reality television show, and an attorney says video of the siege contradicts the police account of what happened."


Thank you, Raina,

Detroit police have done a dirty deed by covering their own members in the shooting of the innocent girl. I hope the officers involved are fired and in jail and that Ayianna's family sue the department. It's a disgrace to the family and the community they swore to protect. Even 7-year old children of color aren't exempt from police brutality. May Ayianna rests in peace.

Arizona: For Whites Only?

Arizona: For Whites Only? | The Atlanta Post

by R. L’Heureux Lewis

Recently, I penned a piece discussing the need for Black folks to join in with the fight against Arizona’s racist immigration bill SB 1070. My goal was to challenge Black folks, to think beyond the immediate immigration bill to the larger injustices that are taking root in Arizona. In the past few weeks, Arizona has continued to make their intentions clear. Whether you agree with SB 1070 or not, the state of Arizona has begun a march towards making the state free, open and inhabitable to Whites and closed to people of color, particularly Latinos.

Arizona is now pushing a package of policies that serve to malign, discriminate against, and reduce the freedoms of non-Whites, citizens and non-citizens alike. The signing of SB 1070 into law has increased the legal discretion and support for thinly veiled racial profiling. This week, the governor signed into law a bill that eliminated Ethnic Studies at the primary and secondary grade levels. Arizona’s Department of Education has been lobbying for the removal of teachers with strong accents or whose grammatical structure is found to be unacceptable. It would be naïve to suggest that these policies are simply about the safety, quality, and fairness as they’ve been pitched; instead they represent a concerted attempt to cleanse Arizona of ethnic influence.

Lena Horne on Rosie O'Donnell 1997

Lena Horne RIP

Lena Horne passed away Monday at age 92.  Here's the tribute video from YouTube.  May she rests in peace.

Aboriginal News Group: FBI loses trial against former American Indian Movement member Richard Marshall

Aboriginal News Group: FBI loses trial against former American Indian Movement member Richard Marshall: FBI loses trial against former American Indian Movement member Richard Marshall | Vancouver Media Co-op: Richard Marshall found not guilty of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash murder

Vancouver resident John Graham's trial set for July 6

By Oshipeya
Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver, Canada
May 12, 2010

An all-White jury in Rapid City, South Dakota, took less than two hours on April 22 to return a not-guilty verdict in the trial of former American Indian Movement (AIM) member Richard Marshall (of the Lakota Nation) in connection to the murder of fellow AIM member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.

Aquash was a Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia and a skilled organizer and warrior with AIM who was targeted and threatened with death by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). When her body was found on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in February of 1976, the FBI tried to cover-up her identity and true cause of death by having her buried as an unknown “Jane Doe” who had supposedly died of exposure, despite an obvious bullet hole wound to her head. A second autopsy requested by family members revealed the murder. At the time, an FBI-supported death squad made up mostly of reservation police officers had killed some 60 members of AIM and traditional Lakota people on Pine Ridge. Other death squad murders had also been passed-off as death by exposure by the FBI’s pathologist and were not investigated.

Open Mic Friday: Question: If Black Women Are So Ugly… « The Obsidian Files

Open Mic Friday: Question: If Black Women Are So Ugly… « The Obsidian Files: "…Where’d all the *lightskinned* Black people come from?
This is the question I always present to those White guys in the Manosphere who swear up and down that Black Women in toto are just sooo hideous, etc. Now, I’m not knocking any Man’s personal preferences. Whatever suits ya, knock yourself out. But it seems like in the odd nexus of the Game and HBDspheres, most White guys seem to go out of their way to hate on and diss Sistas. Which to me seems downright irrational, given the fact that millions of lightskinned Black folks do indeed exist."

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

Black Conscious Thought: What The Hell Is Going On With White Men & White Women???

Black Conscious Thought: What The Hell Is Going On With White Men & White Women???: "looks like SOME white men are throwing white women...well western white women... under the bus. Just take a look at this comment from a white man..."

Desmond Tutu: Arizona: The Wrong Answer

Desmond Tutu: Arizona: The Wrong Answer

I am saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in. Or that, should a policeman hear her accent and form a "reasonable suspicion" that she is an illegal immigrant, she can -- and will -- be taken into custody until someone sorts it out, while her children are at home waiting for their dinner.

Equally disturbing is what will happen in the mind of the policeman. The police talk today about how they do not wish to, and will not, engage in racial profiling. Yet faced with the option of using common sense and compassion, or harassing a person who has done nothing wrong, a particularly sinister aspect of Arizona's new immigration law will be hanging over his head. He can be personally sued, by anyone, for failing to enforce this inhumane new act.

More News on the American Taliban of Arizona State...

Experts: GOP Plan To Change Citizenship Rights Is 'Clearly Unconstitutional' | TPMDC

Earlier this week, we told you about Rep. Duncan Hunter's (R-CA) support for deporting natural born American citizens whose parents are illegal immigrants. That position is based on a Republican proposal to stop granting citizenship rights to such children.

According to two constitutional law experts, that's "clearly unconstitutional."

To explain Hunter's comment, the congressman's spokesperson pointed TPM to a bill, co-sponsored by more than 90 House Republicans, including Hunter, that would eliminate citizenship rights for children born in the U.S. whose parents are illegal immigrants.

The 14th Amendment states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Anti-Immigration Flyer: Mexicans Want To Kill 'Gringos' | TPMMuckraker

In another sign of the heightened tensions surrounding illegal immigration in Arizona, a far-right anti-immigration group is stoking fears of a violent Mexicans out to murder white people -- and invoking hard-line sheriff Joe Arpaio -- in a bid to raise money. The group's leader tells TPMmuckraker that in the wake of Arizona's draconian new immigration law, "the irresistible force of globalism and the Mexican invasion is about to meet the immovable object of American sovereignty."

A fundraising flyer sent this month by the American Border Patrol -- a group of anti-immigration advocates who conduct airplane missions to monitor the Arizona-Mexico border -- leads with a quote attributed to Jose Angel Gutierrez, the founder of La Raza: "We have got to eliminate the gringo. And what I mean is, if worse comes to worst, we have got to kill him." Above the quote is a picture of an immigrants rights protest, including a prominent banner declaring: "We Are Indigenous, The Only Owners Of This Continent." (See the flyer here.)

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

Civil rights activist Dorothy Height dies at 98 - USATODAY.com

Civil rights activist Dorothy Height dies at 98 - USATODAY.com: "WASHINGTON — Civil rights pioneer Dorothy Height, the president of the National Council of Negro Women for more than 40 years and a pivotal figure during the civil rights era of the 1960s, died Tuesday at the age of 98."

Rest in peace, Miss Height!