SANDRA BLAND CASE: GRAND JURORS IN TEXAS DECLINE TO INDICT JAIL STAFF

Feeling Rebloggy

Grand jurors in Texas declined on Monday to indict anyone in connection to the July death of a Chicago-area woman, Sandra Bland, who was found hanged in her cell at the Waller County jail, one of the special prosecutors assigned to the case said.

Many activists have called for charges against Brian Encinia, the Texas state trooper who arrested Ms. Bland after a routine traffic stop in Prairie View, northwest of Houston, turned contentious.

...Mr. Jordan, one of five special prosecutors in the case, [said] “The case is not over. That’s what I’m stressing right now. The case is not over.” [He] said Monday’s decision not to indict anyone related only to Ms. Bland’s death and to the conduct of the jail staff.

~New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/us/grand-jury-finds-no-felony-committed-by-jailers-in-death-of-sandra-bland.html?_r=0

Again, the grand jurors refused to bring charges against the jail staff.  However, I'm not that hopeful about a criminal case being brought against Officer Brian Encinia either --not in Texas.

But I am hoping that the 2017 civil case will bring the family some measure of Justice. 

And while it's too much to hope that Black Lives Matter will be successful in breaking the police union's ability to blackmail cities into paying the entire bill for bad cops before Bland's civil case goes to court, I can hope that we can shine enough light on this case that Officer Brian Encinia becomes too much of liability to keep on the payroll.
By the way, it ain't magic that these cop killer cases keep going to court just before the holidays. The Eric Garner court decision of no indictment was handed down between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in the first week of December. The Mike Brown court decision, of no indictment, was very near Thanksgiving, on November 25 2014.  And I tend to think that the "prosecutors" are going along with this timing. Now that I think about it, the first of the Freddie Gray Trials started between Thanksgiving and Christmas too; I wonder if the officers who beat Freddy Gray will just happen to be tried near the holidays in 2016.

The powers that be are getting a little smarter though. This time the grand jury for the Sandra Bland case came back out with their decision and we're only 4 days from Christmas instead of three weeks to a month out -- which decreases the chances multiple protests dramatically, doesn't it?

The one I really want to see in jail for his abuse of power is Officer Brian Encinia anyway. Yet that seems out of reach as well. I guess I'll pray on Christmas day that the special prosecutor manages to throw a Hail Mary in January 2016. A miracle is probably what it will take for Encinia to pay and cops across this nation to stop arresting people they don't like based on skin color, or not performing obedient slave behavior, or not performing demure female behavior.

   

SAY HER NAME

SANDRA BLAND

NEW ORLEANS VOTES TO REMOVE 4 CONFEDERATE STATUES FROM LEE CIRCLE

In New Orleans the area known as "Lee Circle will lose the statue of its namesake after the New Orleans City Council voted 6-1 Thursday (Dec. 17) to remove four monuments related to the Confederacy from their prominent perches around the city....

The four statues were erected between 1884 and 1915, after Reconstruction and during the era of Jim Crow. While three depict figures deeply influential within the Confederacy, the fourth, the Battle of Liberty Place, honors an 1874 insurrection of mostly Confederate veterans who battled against the city's police and state militia [to restore a more overt white supremacy during reconstruction]"

Read More: 
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/12/confederate_monuments_lee_circ.html

RECENT HISTORY: NYC ERIC GARNER PROTESTS OF 2014

Timelapse video reveals massive size of New York City Protests...Wow. So Cool
Posted by Sanaa Lathan on Sunday, December 14, 2014

BLACK LIVES MATTER GOES AFTER POLICE UNIONS THAT PROTECT KILLERS IN UNIFORM

One of the many reasons that police murderers have been escaping justice has to do with item #10 of Black Lives Matter's Campaign Zero, the protection of police Unions.



Read some of the more outrageous "protections" a police union has put into place

“In Austin, Houston, Louisville, and San Antonio, police union contracts go so far as to require 48-hour notice before an interview with an officer can be conducted, a precaution predicated on the utterly baseless claim that the buffer helps preserve accurate memory.

Before Cleveland’s recent settlement with the Justice Department, the personnel files of its police were wiped clean every two years.”

In addition, Campaign Zero correctly notes that many police union contracts:

• Mandate paid leave for officers who kill

• Prevent anonymous complaints from being investigated

• Restrict the amount of time an officer can be interrogated for misconduct

• Protect the identities of violent officers from public scrutiny

• Require cities to pay for misconduct settlements

• Prevent civilian oversight structures from being able tointerrogate or subpoena officers

Read More:http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/black-lives-matter-takes-aim-at-police-union-contracts/418530/

PEOPLE OF COLOR ROCK THE GOLDEN GLOBES 13 TIMES

REBLOGGED FROM
GIFTHETV.TUMBLR.COM

See the original post here in MOVING COLORhttp://gifthetv.tumblr.com/post/134923783434/twelve-actors-of-color-have-been-nominated-for-the

WILLIAM PORTER: FREDDY GRAY TRIAL 1 of 6 ENDS IN HUNG JURY

"A mistrial was declared in the trial of a Baltimore police officer charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray after the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision.

It's unclear whether the state will pursue a retrial of the cop, William Porter.

The jury deliberated over three days, signaling at one point that they might not reach a unanimous decision. Jurors told the court Tuesday they were deadlocked but the judge sent them back to deliberate."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/hung-jury-freddie-gray-trial/story?id=35795635

 - - - - - - - - - -

The only thing I believe in for sure is Freddie Gray's screams before he was put in the van and the witness saying that the cops were breaking his leg. You can't see much. But I can hear Freddie screaming

Sooo...like I said a long time ago
"The Van Did It"
because there was no seat belt
plus
trotting out 3 black defendants
along side
3 white defendants
2 of which likely did all the beating
was never going to hold together

But trotting out three new black faces along the three old white faces in the beating video  was the quickest way to end the protests in Baltimore.

Like I said, I wouldn't turn my back on Marilyn just because she's black. She's a politician. Politicians of all colors love power for its own sake.

Her theory of what happened in the van came together too quickly for me. I haven't read enough to know what the standard procedures are or who usually decides the police van's route or who decides deviating from the usual route to the hospital.  Most of all, I don't know how badly hurt the three people in the van thought Freddie was....

You know who might know how badly Freddie was hurt? The people that beat him up. 

And that brings me to my next point. 

Why would you try the people who brought the van to the scene of the crime before you try the people who did the original crime (the illegal arrest and beating)? Why wouldn't you establish how badly Freddie was hurt before he was put in the van-- by trying the people who did the beating first?

Wouldn't the severity of the beating itself determine whether or not Freddie was capable of holding his neck and head in a normal position during the van ride--if you tried the people who did the beating first? Wouldn't his head and neck strength determine how much the absence of a seat belt would hurt him? 

The 6 juries are not sequestered. Each juries decision will impact the remaining juries. I'm trying to figure out why the seat belt crap is first. And it's actually making me mad that the seat belt is getting all this air time on the news...

--as if we know for sure that theory is true

--as if we did NOT hear Freddie Gray screaming before being put in the van

--as if we did not see him being dragged to the van with a bystander yelling about how it looks as if the officers were trying to break Gray's leg.

(It's not like we've seen video of this van going around corners on two wheels.  How does a van ride damn near separate the spine of a normal healthy person? Maybe I'm just not appreciating how helpless one is while shackled?)

To me, believing Marilyn Mosby's story, the first official story of Freddie Gray's death --that just happened to present perfect imagery to stop the protests dead in its tracks-- is like believing the first story told about JFK's murder when you know that first story is probably coming from the people who failed to provide adequate security on the parade route.

If Baltimore is heavily black and we know the jury is majority black, then  maybe something is probably isn't right with Marilyn Mosby's case.

I need to hear more about what went on in that jury room, a lot more.

So, I don't know how I feel about this at all.  Not yet.

  

Happy Birthday Barbara Smith

Feeling Rebloggy

"Barbara Smith has been an activist, organizer and writer for the past three decades, and with the recent publication of, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom, we finally have a book length collection of her groundbreaking ideas, politics and analysis....

Smith relentless pursues the question of how can we build organizations and a progressive movement that includes the majority of society that feels the heel of oppression on their neck. How do we build strong coalitions working for radical social change that are multiracial, multigenerational, feminist, pro-queer and class conscious? But Smith isn’t just writing about why we need to all come together.

This collection presents crucial writings that address the complex and painful factors that have kept us apart and how inequality is reproduced in our movements. How can we organize against oppression without recreating oppression in the process of our organizing? How can we have critical dialogues about race, class, gender and sexuality and the ways that they shape our organizing and our politics, while we are working to challenge the larger structures of power and privilege in society? These are questions that she examines and begins to answer.

As a Black feminist lesbian socialist, who has consistently challenged racism and classism in the feminist movement, sexism and homophobia in the Black community, sexism and racism in the queer movement, these issues have never lived in the realm of theory alone. Barbara Smith has been a leading figure in the struggle to “build analysis, practice, and movements that accurately address the specific ways that racism, capitalism, and all the major systems of oppression interconnect in the United States.” She has helped develop the politics of intersectionality, that looks at the ways that race interacts with gender and sexuality connects with class and how these structures of oppression and privilege have shaped and influenced people’s lives"

Read Morehttp://www.coloursofresistance.org/629/the-truth-that-never-hurts-writings-on-race-gender-and-freedom/

HOW POLICE UNIONS KEEP ABUSIVE POLICE WORKING

Feeling Rebloggy 



First A 2015 Example of 
An Abuse Of Police Power
Using A Technicality As An Excuse

"He didn't do nothing wrong," one woman tells the officer. "That is a child who was jaywalking."

At one point during the struggle, the officer appears to hit the boy in the face with the baton, and the boy can be heard crying. Later, eight back-up officers arrive at the scene and can be seen tackling the boy to the ground."

~Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/09/stockton-police-teenager-jaywalking-arrest%20

Video below is not for the faint-hearted. A woman is yelling profanities trying to get the officer to lay off the kid who you can eventually hear crying in the video

"The classic template for police abuse: misbehaving cops are spared punishment by colleagues and bosses who cover for them.

There are, of course, police officers who are fired for egregious misbehavior by commanding officers who decide that a given abuse makes them unfit for a badge and gun. Yet all over the U.S., police unions help many of those cops to get their jobs back, often via secretive appeals geared to protect labor rights rather than public safety. Cops deemed unqualified by their own bosses are put back on the streets. 

[Then] their colleagues [right along with the rest of us] get the message that police all but impervious to termination."

~The Atlantic  

Read More (from 2012): 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/how-police-unions-keep-abusive-cops-on-the-street/383258/

BIDDING ADIEU TO BADU AND THE SOUL TRAIN AWARDS

The word "Adieu"
(French)
Translation: Bye Felicia

Erykah Badu has a uniquely beautiful face and this totally cool vibe to her. And she's sung a couple of black woman anthems. So I like her. I've never been that big a huge fan, but I like her and I try to check out what she's been doing from time to time. 

Recently, Badu sang R. Kelly's praises as she introduced him on The Soul Train Awards.

“I know they said no red cups y’all, but this man has done more for the blacks than anyone.”

“He taught how, in the name of love, to step together. He taught us to stay out that trapped closet. And he believes he can fly,” she continued.

This is not okay.

I heard an interview with Badu recently, so I know she's not the sharpest stick in the box. But we all know by now that there's video of R. Kelly peeing on a black female child and also that his own words leave no doubt that he would be guilty of statutory rape in most civilized countries.

There's no excuse for a black woman being but so ignorant and/or being so foul herself that she doesn't care what this low life has done that another black woman or girl.

Beyond a certain level of self-hatred, I have to turn away. Therefore, I'm going to show my love for black women and black girls by boycotting Badu and The Soul Train Awards, both. I'm done.

BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM

ANTI-EXTREMISM EFFORTS IN THE MUSLIM COMMUNTIY

Feeling Rebloggy

"Each time the Islamic State, al Qaeda or another terrorist group commits violence in the name of Islam, a familiar refrain arises: What's the Muslim world doing about it? 

In fact, anti-extremism efforts abound in the global Muslim community: Muslim leaders and scholars have denounced the Islamic State group, the U.K.'s Muslim Youth League has declared "ideological holy war" against extremism, and YouTube has even tried to recruit American Muslims to counter extremist content.

And in Indonesia, home of the world's largest Muslim population, a massive anti-extremism movement is underway. "

~Huffpost

Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indonesian-muslims-counter-isis_565c737ae4b072e9d1c26bda

EMOTIONAL JUSTICE: WHAT BLACK WOMEN WANT AND NEED

Feeling Rebloggy

"In the US, the scant media coverage on the trial of former Oklahoma police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who is accused of sexual assaulting 13 black women, is just one example of the deafening silence and apathy around violence toward black women. Only a few op-eds on websites covering the African American community have led the charge and asked, where is the outrage?

Some scholars and activists maintain that what’s missing are in-depth statistics regarding women and girls victimized by police. For others, the oversight is part of a broader problem: the media’s failure to provide a detailed context of how racism affects black women.

But all agree the core problem is the lack of acknowledgment that an offense has even been committed.

~The Guardian

Read More: 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/03/emotional-justice-what-black-women-want-and-need

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, DONALD TRUMP IS YOUR MESS TO CONTAIN

Feeling Rebloggy

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE:

"Donald Trump isn't a Republican issue

or a rich people issue

or a human issue.

Donald Trump is a white people issue." 

"Whenever Ben Carson says batshit crazy nonsense, Black people rise up, and let him know that he needs to STFU.

Whenever Raven-Symone pops off, we put her cap back on.

We even handled Rachel Dolezal for you.

Yes, we also make jokes and come up with clever memes and hashtags, but at the core of all that is that we are letting these people know that they are embarrassing us as Black people. It is time, white people, for you to finally step up and recognize that you also (even more so) have a responsibility to your race. It is up to you to silence Donald Trump.

Don't just insult him and make fun of him. You have to connect it to your race...

W. Kamau Bell

SHORT AND SWEET
DO READ THE REST HERE
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154375346873572&set=a.99989323571.109303.729268571&type=3&theater

STAY IN YOUR LANE!
CLEAN UP NEEDED ON AISLE THREE!

BLACK WOMEN MATTERED TODAY - OFFICER DANIEL HOLTZCLAW CONVICTED

Daniel Holtzclaw crying like a child after raping 13 black women
Jury recommended 263 years if you, add it up

Ex-officer Holtzclaw, whose father is white and mother Japanese, was accused of assaulting or raping 13 women, all black, while he was on the job. Court records identify his race as "Asian or Pacific Islander."

The 29 year old Holtzclaw sobbed as the judge read the charges and associated verdicts. Though acquitted of 18 of the 36 charges four of the first degree rape charges carry a possible life sentence.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/us/oklahoma-daniel-holtzclaw-trial/

An all-white jury...deliberated for more than 40 hours over four days...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/daniel-holtzclaw-verdict_566591ade4b08e945feff52b

WHITE DEBT AND RACE PRIVILEGE

Feeling Rebloggy


The power to punish, Nietzsche notes, can enhance your sense of social status, increasing the pleasure of cruelty.







Reading this, I recall a white Texas trooper’s encounter with the black woman he pulled over for failure to signal a lane change. As the traffic stop became a confrontation that ended with Sandra Bland face down on the side of the road, she asked Brian Encinia, over and over, whether what he was doing made him feel good.

‘‘You feelin’ good about yourself?’’ she asked. ‘‘Don’t it make you feel good, Officer Encinia?’’

After asking the same question Nietzsche asked, the question of why justice would take this form, she came to the same conclusion.

~NY TIMES

Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/white-debt.html?_r=0

FREDDY GRAY TRIAL #1: AUDIO ADDED TO ARREST VIDEO AND LEAVES JURORS SHAKEN

The beating and arrest of Freddy Gray appears to have taken place before William Porter, currently on trial for his death, was involved.

But the arrest videos, one of which was taken by a friend of Gray's, was shown in court a few days ago. 





Feeling Rebloggy

"The first cellphone footage shown in court was a video taken by bystander Kevin Moore. That video has been shown on a loop on the news, with footage of Gray as his legs go limp and bike-patrol officers hold him on either side. This video, however, includes audio that the public hasn't heard. In it, a police officer has Gray on the ground, handcuffed; and while it's not shown on the video, Gray is allegedly hit with a stun gun repeatedly. It's difficult to distinguish who's speaking as a voice yells, "Why are they tasing him like that? Wondering why he can't use his legs? Don't worry, we recording this s--t."

As the audio played, some jurors were visibly shaken. Gray's mother, Gloria Darden, wiped her eyes quietly throughout Ross' testimony but began sobbing loudly by the end of the second grainy cellphone video, which wasn't as clear for viewing but had audio that captured the emotion of the moment. Ross can be heard on the video saying, "Hey, can we get a supervisor here, please!" 

~The Root

Read Morehttp://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/12/freddie_gray_trial_jurors_visibly_shaken_when_video_of_his_arrest_played.html

TWIN SOULS: WHITE AMERICAN SLAVE HOLDERs AND WHITE GERMAN NAZIs

I've known for a long time that white people experimented on black people. Who hasn't heard of the Tuskegee experiment? But the devil is in the details, as described in the article below. 

Statue Of J Marion Sims in Central Park

Feeling Rebloggy

Without anesthesia, Lucy was the first to bear the operation on her hands and knees while 12 visiting doctors watched Sims’ experimental procedure. According to Sims, her bladder had fallen, leaving an opening between the bladder and vagina approximately 2 inches in diameter. He referred to the operation as being on the “…eve of a great discovery…,” and said it was, “… tedious and difficult…” (237).

Sims made improvements on the instruments he constructed as he worked. Eventually, he inserted a piece of sponge inside the neck of Lucy’s bladder and sewed it up. Naturally, within days she developed what Sims referred to as “blood poisoning” (238), and became deathly ill. After 5 days, he cut open her sutures to remove the sponge, but it had hardened. Suffering from inflammation and infection, Sims wrote that he thought, “Lucy’s agony was extreme,” and “She was going to die.” (238). However, Lucy lived and Sims continued his experimentation. 

Afterwards, Sims then moved on to the other women, Anarcha and Betsy, allowing Lucy time to heal in between surgeries. The process of experimentation continued for four years with the women solely under Sims’ care....

A 2006 article by L.L. Wall in the Journal of Medical Ethics defends Sims....

READ MORE: http://hubpages.com/politics/Slave-Women-and-the-Birth-of-Gynecology#

FREDDIE GRAY TRIAL #1: WILLIAM PORTER

Feeling Rebloggy

Porter, who is black, is the first of six Baltimore police officers to go on trial in connection with Gray's death. The jury that will judge him reflects the city's population, with eight blacks and four whites.

Although Porter's trial isn't being televised or tweeted live, it will be closely followed over the next two weeks. Judge Barry Williams has said he expects a verdict by December 17.

~CNN

READ MORE/HEAR MOREhttp://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/us/baltimore-police-trial-freddie-gray/

MUSIC: Younger by Seinabo Sey (Sweden)

Why we fight to get on loving
I've been wondering

How your mind will leave you hanging
your heart lingering

Stay lost

then found

by whoever stays around,

forgetting

There is a way to be yourself,

I assure you this

There's a way to catch your dreams

without falling asleep

You might as well 
get it while you can, babe

'cause you know you ain't getting any

Younger, Younger, Younger

Are you?

by SEINABO SEY - Sweden

A Victorious Song And Video below

FULL LYRICS

There's a conclusion to my illusion
I assure you this
There's no end to this confusion
If you let it wish
you well
Soul to sell
Highest bidders, can't you tell what you're getting?

There is a light to all this darkness
I will tell you this
There's redemption in you asking them
just why it is
Some answers are better left unspoken
when you know you ain't getting any

Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
You ain't getting any
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?

Why we fight to get on loving
I've been wondering
How your mind will leave you hanging
your heart lingering
Stay lost
Then found
by whoever stays around,
forgetting

There is a way to be yourself,
I assure you this
There's a way to catch your dreams
without falling asleep
You might as well get it while you can, babe
'cause you know you ain't getting any

Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
You ain't getting any
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?

There is a light
to all this darkness if only we
Fight against them telling us
how we should be
I refuse to have you break me
When you know you ain't getting any

Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
You ain't getting any
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?
Younger, younger, younger
Are you?

LOCKING SELF OUT OF HOME WHILE BLACK: THE FAY WELLS STORY

LIFE OFTEN IMITATES ART
THIS MUCH IS TRUE

Check out this one minute clip 

from the movie "Thelma and Louise"

HOWEVER, LIFE IMITATES ART 

WITH A VENGEANCE
WHEN YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN
LIVING IN A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA




 
Who would'a guessed that a black woman locking herself out of her own home would look so much like a scene from Thelma and Louise?

~~~~~

Fay ells had just gotten back home after playing soccer and found that she had locked herself out of her apartment. Soon after the locksmith got her inside, the Santa Monica police came to arrest her for breaking in.

A white man decided he didn't recognize her, called the police and leading edge of white supremacy came to get her, guns drawn like they were looking for Thelma, Louise, and their AK-47 toting twin sisters.

When Wells was dragged outside in handcuffs she counted a total of 19 police officers

Wells wrote:

"It didn’t matter that I told the cops I’d lived there for seven months, told them about the locksmith, offered to show a receipt for his services and my ID. 

It didn’t matter that I went to Duke, that I have an MBA from Dartmouth, that I’m a vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation.

It didn’t matter that I’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket. It didn’t matter that I calmly, continually asked them what was happening.

It also didn’t matter that I didn’t match the description of the person they were looking for — my neighbor described me as Hispanic when he called 911.

What mattered was that I was a woman of color trying to get into her apartment — in an almost entirely white apartment complex in a mostly white city — and a white man who lived in another building called the cops because he’d never seen me before."

laist.com 

http://laist.com/2015/11/18/fay_wells_santa_monica.php

It also didn't matter that Fay Wells was a lone black woman. Nineteen cops? Were they racing to see who would get to shoot somebody?


You tell me, okay? Why would 19 cops show up for a break-in? Why do you have your guns out for a "maybe."

"Maybe" somebody is breaking in, right? Maybe. A 911 call is a "maybe," yes?  A 911 call is not a sure thing, right? That's why you don't show up to a possible break-in involving 1 or 2 people with your guns out. A 911 call is a "maybe."  That lack of sureness is also why a cop should never pull his gun out and shoot it at boy 2 seconds after he steps out of his squad car onto a playground, right? 

If the white guy across the street

had ACTUALLY seen

a black or Hispanic woman

with a gun breaking into an apartment

I still don't understand why 19 cops responded

NINETEEN? 

Oh yeah. I forgot. Black and brown people have superhuman demon-like strength according to Darren Wilson. I forgot. My bad. Nineteen is totally reasonable. 

Wells has been fighting the Santa Monica police department, trying to get answers for what happened. Last I read she couldn't even get all the names of the cops that were there during her arrest. She got 17 of the 19 names from the Santa Monica Police Department and the list of names that she was given doesn't match the list Santa Monica Police Department sent to the newspaper editor that requested the same information.

Is there any question in your mind as to what happened to Skip Gates not long after President Obama was elected. Remember when the President said the police responded "stupidly?"  

The police in Massachusetts basically arrested Skip Gates for getting mouthy when the white officer, clearly suffering Slave Master Mentality, started ordering Skips about in his own home AFTER that cop knew Gates hadn't broken in.


I can't find the link, but be advised that I got the slave-master-mentality impression from Officer Crowley's rendition of events (in a police report ?), not Skip Gates' version and not from any "liberal newspaper" either. Officer Crowley made it clear that he thought he had the gawd given right to boss a little, old, black man on a cane around.

When Crowley's white wife was interviewed for a newspaper she inadvertently made sure everybody understood the same thing-- master mentality arrives in her husband with the putting on of his uniform. I believe she used the words something like 'my husband demands respect when he's in uniform.'

Sandra Bland is dead due to Slave Master Mentality as well. Encinias may register as white but he's pale enough to pass, and he passed as white with flying colors the day her arrested Bland. 

I think Mike Brown is dead for the same reason, Slave Master Mentality. I believed the friend when he said Wilson hit Brown with the door and it hit him in the face. Can you imagine the master in "12 Years A Slave" responding any differently than Darren Wilson apparently did? I can't.  

I hope to see that Wells is interviewed by a black magazine or a black news outlet soon because I'd really like to know more details about how she fits herself into the Black Lives Matter narrative. 

I wonder if the Santa Monica police department's treatment of her stripped away any class protections she thought she had? I wonder if she was surprised by the fact that everything she said to them about belonging there, about being in her own home just evaporated into the air. She must have felt like her voice was being sucked away into a black hold where nobody could hear it.

I'm actually surprised more black people don't become more violent in such situations. The police are dragging you out of your own home like you don't belong there, where you have bills with your name on them, pictures of your own family, and passwords on your computers to prove that you belong there, even a receipt from the locksmith. And still nobody listens when you're clearly saying,

'This space is mine. I pay rent here. You are the ones that don't belong here' 

All it took for Sandra Bland to die was say she had the right to smoke in her own car after the cop had finished giving her the ticket. Who can defend such behavior except those who truly believe they own you? 


I hope Wells was only surprised by the number of officers that showed up and not the event itself. Black adults who are poorly mentally prepared for white assaults can go one of two ways. They can suddenly become outraged into protest action or they can become so disillusioned that they are hateful and suspicious of all white people, forevermore.  And I think I've seen that the latter is more likely.


In some ways, I'm very glad that my parents felt like they were forced, by the times we were living in, to talk to me about race from a very young age. I was five or six the first time I had nasty racial experience with other children. I was probably twelve before a white adult went beyond giving me nasty looks or refusing to touch my hand when giving me change.


It hurt me very much to be told about white racism so young. But I feel like you're more flexible when you're young because you allow yourself to be sad. The older you get the more you tell yourself the behavior of others doesn't matter and "I don't care anyway." In other words, you respond to hurts by making yourself harder and tougher instead of crying once you get a little older.


On the flip side, I keep wondering if it wouldn't be better to raise black children in an exclusively black environment sans any white imagery until they are seven or eight or nine -- old enough to have a very strong base for their self-esteem, old enough to see their own black looks as the most beautiful normal but young enough to cry and admit they are hurt when they are hurt by sexism, racism, and the petty evil that comes out of the human heart so often.


In other words, I wonder if black children wouldn't be better off learning a stronger sense of self before learning empathetic acceptance of the other.  I've been wondering this for years now. I still don't know


But I don't wonder about older children and adults being surprised by the depth of white racism in this country. I can't recall ever having seen a naive black adult move into accepting overt and covert racism for what it is in a mature and reasonable way. There's either a brittle hatred of all white people or three-quarters of the reality of white racism is stuffed into a box and hidden away. I feel like you can't help either extremist. It's like they're destined to suffer from B-PTSD* for the rest of their lives.

So, I hope Fay Wells was mentally prepared for what happened. And I hope we get to hear what she does with this experience in the future.

Fay Wells, who is the vice president of strategy 
at a multinational corporation, penned a piece  
in The Washington Post today, detailing the harrowing ordeal 
that took place on Sept. 6 and how she is still shaken up.
She writes, "I'm heartbroken that the place I called home no longer feels safe."

~~~~~~~

The police department's response, issued by a black female police chief, tries to divert attention from the only thing that matters - sending 17 to 19 police officers and a K-9 unit for a break-in and how it is the officers that knocked on Wells' door couldn't resolve it AT THE DOOR instead of dragging her outside in cuffs.  Any idiot can call the police. One idiot did, racist or not. The police response is the problem.

And I really thought we'd established that the swarm technique is a bad technique with the beating of Rodney King. Maybe that's not what I think it is -- sending 5x as many cops as is necessary to get the job done

The NAACP had already been to Santa Monica to discuss its poor handling of other cases. They Santa Monica PD is supposed to be producing a report on their handling of minorities in a report next year. 

Santa Monica Police Department Contact Information
 310.395.9931 • police@smgov.net