By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams
What fresh hell is this? In yet another mindlessly cruel, deeply racist, utterly pointless move aimed at – what?! distracting the masses from the dumpster fire engulfing him? flexing his psychotic muscle by trying to find more people of color he can traumatize? – the Trump administration (sic) wants to deport certain Vietnamese refugees who may or may not have committed any crimes but they’re not quite white so really does it matter? [Read more…]
Today’s Union-Tribune has a front page article about hate crimes in San Diego County. There are lots of details about criminal/hate-inspired actions and almost no acknowledgement as to what motivates them.
Hate crimes are up, we’re told. While local prosecutions have increased in the past year, most hate crimes aren’t reported.
A majority (60%) of hate crimes are directed at people based on their race or ethnicity, followed by religion (20%) and LGBTQ (16%) orientation. [Read more…]
Natasha Trethewey, U.S. Poet Laureate of 2012-2104, was born in Gulfport, Mississippi on April 26, 1966. I suspect that the incident described in this poem was a lived experience and not mere literary invention. There was something chilling about reading, at this time of year, the line describing “the cross trussed like a Christmas tree”. [Read more…]
By Bradley W. Hart / California State University, Fresno
Hours after Robert Bowers allegedly walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 people, investigators told the media that Bowers appeared to have acted alone and fit what experts call the “lone mass shooter profile.”
Weeks later, FBI agents arrested a Washington D.C. man who followed Bowers on social media. He had told relatives he wanted to pursue the same path and start “a race revolution.” [Read more…]
From the MSNBC YouTube website:
The new class of Democrats in Congress is a group that’s closer to reflecting what America looks like than ever before. But is this the start of something new in American politics, or a classic midterm course correction?
On Monday night, District Attorney Summer Stephan attended the vigil at the Congregation Beth Israel for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. She stood on stage and sat in the front row.
However, when asked by a reporter from Times of San Diego about the anti-Semitic website that her campaign launched attacking George Soros during the June primary election, Ms. Stephan refused to answer any questions or acknowledge the issue.
As the leadership team of the campaign for Geneviéve Jones-Wright, the target of Ms. Stephan’s race-baiting and fear mongering, we watched in horror as the voters of San Diego fell for hateful scare tactics.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
A week of horror: Bombs mailed, black people executed, Jews slaughtered at prayer while a well-armed lunatic shrieked, “All Jews must die!”, all as the heedless Nationalist in the White House blathers, “It’s a terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country.”
There were abundant signs: Michael Moore has outtake footage of a bulked-up Cesar Sayoc yelling “CNN Sucks!” at an early Trump rally, another sorry soul full of fear and anger, looking for someone to hate, “a lost dog with no direction home.”
From the New York Times YouTube web page:
In this satirical infomercial, the comedian and actress Niecy Nash plays the inventor of a new hotline, 1-844-WYT-FEAR. The video advertises a phone service for white people to call when they can’t cope with black people living their lives near them. It’s a real phone number we created so that fearful whites can call it for advice, about their racism.
[h/t to Annie L.] [Read more…]
I’ve been dealing with some back issues but a trip to Atlanta, especially moments I spent in a church basement there, got me standing as tall as I can.
Being in Atlanta, a Black Mecca, made me rejoice in just being black and alive.
I mean there were people who looked like me everywhere I trained my eyes: in the airport, in front of and behind counters; serving and being served; pushing wheelchairs and being pushed in wheelchairs; announcing flights and boarding flights – in the hotel doing every job there is to be done in the hotel industry. [Read more…]
By R. Zamora
In San Diego 897 people have been killed by law-enforcement since the 1950s. My cousin, Jonathon Coronel, is among these statistics. My cousin was unarmed and surrendered on the ground, yet still shot 22 times by San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Villanueva.
As if riddling one body with 22 hollow-point bullets wasn’t terrorizing to our community enough, Christopher Villanueva tortured another human being to death, Sergio Weick, just eleven months prior to murdering Jonathon Coronel. Villanueva fired 26 gunshots onto Sergio Weick. Someone who is firing excessive shots, so excessive that he had to reload his gun, onto one human being clearly does not fear for his life but rather enjoys asserting his deadly power.
Officers like him have been empowered to continue their terrorizing behavior thanks to the District Attorney’s refusal to charge any officers that have overstepped their boundaries for murder. Between 2005 – 2015 there have been 155 police killings and all have been deemed “justified” by the District Attorney’s office. Summer Stephan is continuing this legacy by refusing to hold police officers accountable for illegal behavior, ultimately condoning the stripping of due process. She is expanding police officer’s role into one of judge, jury, and executioner. [Read more…]
By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos
On Thursday evening, Donald Trump went to Montana to make jokes about assaulting journalists and the rally crowd responded by laughing and making threats against the reporters on hand at the event. If Trump and his followers seemed particularly cruel … that’s exactly where the whole Republican Party is going. Because even as the evidence piles up that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered inside the Saudi consulate on orders from crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, Republicans are planning their response — smear Khashoggi.
As the Washington Post reports, both conservative congressmen and media hosts have mounted a campaign against Khashoggi to paint him as someone who was friendly with terrorists and who conspired against the United States. The purpose of the campaign is to make the gruesome dismemberment of the US resident acceptable, make Saudi actions ugly but necessary, and most of all to make Trump’s continued refusal to speak out against bin Salman acceptable.
Republicans in the House have been swapping links and posts from alt-Reich websites that have already turned Khashoggi into a founding member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and a supporter of terrorists. Those same reports are getting more attention on right-wing talk radio, where they’ve been blown up even larger than the original sites — making the whole idea that Khashoggi was allowed into the United States in the first place seem like a mistake. [Read more…]
From the Black Voters Matter Facebook page:
Voter suppression is real, y’all and it happened to us today in Louisville, Georgia in Jefferson County. We had a whole busload of beautiful black elders ready to go vote when the county commisionner shut us down and made our elders get off the bus without having the chance to vote. This is voter suppression pure and simple. These elders have been through this time and time again so today was fuel to our fire! Instead of bring five family members and friends, they’re gonna bring twenty! Can’t stop, won’t stop. When we work together, we win. Share this video for us to get out the word that we need a record turnout in Georgia from now untiol Election Day! And tell us if and where you voted yet in the comments!! [Read more…]
