Posts tagged anti black racism
Cumulative notes for the Zōon Politikon
“I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people.”
-Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower of May 13, 1958
After he retired from Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson went on to champion the cause of civil rights from his position as a prominent executive of the Chock Full o’Nuts Corporation.
Robinson had grown increasingly impatient with what he regarded as President Eisenhower’s failure to act decisively in combating racism. In this letter dated May 13, 1958, he expresses his frustration and calls upon the President to finally guarantee Federal support of black civil rights.
(via ushistoryminuswhiteguys)
OMG.
People keep reblogging the post about Lavender Brown and the whole replacing the actress thing.I POSTED MY OPINION GOOD GOD.
Explain to me how I am racist? Simply because I said I don’t think the film makers realized how important Lavender Brown was in the movies, so the other two actresses weren’t invited back when it came time for her to have lines. AND IT JUST SO HAPPENED THEY HIRED A FUCKING WHITE GIRL.
Maybe the other two weren’t talented? Maybe the other two didn’t fit the role anymore? Maybe the other two were busy with other jobs? So unless you hear back from the casting director, don’t say shit to me.People who think the film makers of Harry Potter are racist are dumb.
(Again, my opinion).But I forgot. Everything on tumblr is about racism.
thegingerninjer said: The actress for Lavender Brown was never black. She wasn’t even in the movies until she got with Ron. The only “black” people were Dean and Angela. Pansy Parkison may have at one point been black but there was never an actress specific to Lav. -.-
First of all, if you can apparently disagree with the claims that you’re racist (which you actually are, seeing how damn hard you’re fighting to claim you’re not while giving the white girl the benefit of the doubt you refuse to afford the two black girls who were originally cast as Lavender), then they must be opinions as well, in which case we’re entitled to the opinon that you’re an ignorant racist fuck just as much as you’re entitled to the opinion that it’s not racist to recast a PoC as a white person as soon as their role becomes ‘important’.
There were two other black people cast as Lavender Brown before Jessie Cave was recast as Lavender, and their names are Kathleen Cauley and Jennifer Smith.
You asked (in a now deleted reblog) how it’s racist to recast Lavender (FOR TALENT!!!!! you claim) as white when there were already two black actresses cast for her? The other children characters were initially cast literally and intentionally with zero talent & experience and they took the time to train all of those actors. What’s one extra actor to train (Kathleen Cauley or Jennifer Smith), when they’ve already done it for so many inexperienced actors/characters with even more involved and nuanced characterisations that take even more time to learn how to act?
Diabetic high school girl beaten by police officer & arrested…for falling asleep in class
May 9, 2013A student who was arrested and beaten for falling asleep at school is now suing an Alabama city, its police department and some school employees for civil rights violation, battery and negligent supervision and hiring. After the diabetic student fell asleep while in a room reserved for “in school suspensions,” a school police officer slammed her face into a cabinet and then arrested her. The incident occurred at a high school in Hoover, Alabama.
Ashlynn Avery, who has diabetes, asthma and sleep apnea, was suspended for cutting class, and had to sit in the in-school suspension room. While she was reading “Huckleberry Finn,” she dozed off. First, the in-school suspension supervisor walked over to her cubicle and struck it, which caused the cubicle to hit Avery’s head, according to the lawsuit. She woke up, but soon fell back asleep. The supervisor, Joshua Whited, then took the book from her and slammed it into the student’s chest.
Avery was then told to leave the room, according to the complaint, and police officer Christopher Bryant followed her. Bryant slapped her backpack, and then “proceeded to shove Ashlynn face first into a file cabinet and handcuff her,” the complaint states. While in the car, Avery vomited. She was taken to a hospital and had to wear a cast as a result of her injuries.
“Ashlynn required follow-up care to her shoulder, arm, and wrist, Ashlynn also required extended mental counseling for trauma caused by the defendants,” the lawsuit states. The Averys are seeking “compensatory and punitive damages for civil rights violations, battery and negligent supervision and hiring,”.
The case is another example of abuses committed by school police officers. Activists have long decried the “school to prison pipeline” which disproportionately affects communities of color. A PBS factsheet, as the Courthouse News Service notes, states that “70 percent of students involved in ‘in-school’ arrests or referred to law enforcement are black or Latino.”
“When police (or ‘school resource officers’ as these sheriff’s deputies are often known) spend time in a school, they often deal with disorder like proper cops — by slapping cuffs on the little perps and dragging them to the precinct,” wrote Chase Madar in the wake of the Newtown massacre. The school shooting in Connecticut has sparked more calls—from both Democrats and the National Rifle Association—for more police officers in schools.
(via fuckyeahcracker)
The Struggle Part Two:
I’m a Scholar, Not a Criminal: The Plight of Black Students at USC
Instead of studying for the last final of my undergraduate career, I am writing this letter in protest of the University of Southern California’s latest atrocity. Last night, students gathered at a house near campus to celebrate their completion of another rigorous school year. Many attendees were graduating seniors. Almost all attendees were minority students: African-American and Latino.
I did not attend last night’s party, but I could hear the helicopter circling from my dorm room over a mile away. When the Facebook posts and photos started appearing on my news feed around 2:30am, I had flashbacks to an era I wasn’t even alive to suffer through. I was too scared to go outside, legitimately fearing that an officer would see me and arrest me for being Black and inquisitive. I can only imagine how my peers felt when they saw over twenty LAPD patrol cars pull up and release 79 officers to end a peaceful, congratulatory party.
It is inexpressibly disheartening to hear fellow students recount horror stories of police brutality two weeks away from being among the first in my family to graduate from a four-year university. To know that my college degree holds no weight in the face of institutional racism and discrimination is sobering. Since the three most recent shootings, all triggered by non-USC affiliated Black males, that occurred on and around USC, there has been an increased presence of LAPD and other security forces around campus. Amid the tense racial climate that followed, I patiently endured the ignorant comments, racist blog posts and suspicious stares, but the intolerance has reached a new high. Six of my friends spent the night in jail.
To be clear, I do not have a problem with increased protection or security. Who’s to say that a shooting won’t occur at the next student party? It could happen, God forbid, and I understand why USC wants to be prepared. My issue lies within the selective surveillance of minority-hosted parties, as if crimes only happen among high concentrations of melanin. Hundreds of criminal offenses, including sexual harassment, rape and assault happen every Thursday night on Greek Row, a undeniably white establishment. Yet, the culprits of the Department of Public Safety Crime Reports distributed to USC students and faculty, seem to be strictly limited to Black and Latino males (6’2-6’5 in dark hoodies). These reports, together with the newly constructed, other-izing gates around campus, have instilled an unhealthy amount of fear in students, administrators and safety officials. We have been trained to double check for USC logos on the sweatshirts of minority males on and around this campus to make sure that they’re “one of us.” It doesn’t surprise me that LAPD has adopted the same attitude. For them, it has been this way for decades.
If the USC Department of Public Safety feels justified in allowing nearly a hundred police officers to shut down a minority attended party due to the fact that African-Americans were responsible for the recent shootings, we’re in for a bigger battle than most students bargained for when they decided to enroll here. That ideology reeks of racial profiling and associates the behavior of a few criminals with the entire Black student body, a comparison that makes my stomach turn. While LAPD is busy sending all of their manpower to harass the future of America’s leaders, the real trouble lies within my campus’ freshly painted fences.
USC should not be permitted to reap the benefits of diversity without facing its complexities. You can’t help the hood without loving it first. When USC’s founders decided to break ground in South Central instead of Malibu, it signed up for a difficult and delicate community partnership that needs to be revisited.
To me, protection means opening our gates even wider for at-risk youth who are in desperate need of positive role models, not locking them out after 9pm. I will feel safe on this campus when I see DPS officers negotiating with LAPD, pleading with them to let students of color party in peace. I will feel welcomed when I see a public statement from President Nikias acknowledging the discrimination and blatant racism that my people have had to endure since we were first admitted into this school. I will become a proud Trojan when the USC community finally grows to reflect and embrace its resilient surroundings.
To my peers, I am sorry that we have to dedicate hours that should be spent studying to defend our freedom of assembly. None of us have the time to write letters, plan meetings and rally against injustice, but we must. The next generation of brilliant Black students is depending on us to guarantee their right to a dignified college experience.
Ways to Act:
Sign this petition to help end racial profiling at USC: http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-racial-profiling-at-usc
Attend the Sit-In at Tommy Trojan on Monday, May 6 from 12-4pm
Attend the DPS & LAPD Campus Discussion on Tuesday, May 7 at 6pm in Annenberg 204
*Meet in front of Annenberg at 5:30pm to pray over the meeting.
(via bad-dominicana)
People think the “Mommy Wars” started in the 1970s when white women entered the pink-collar work force, but white women like Susan B. Anthony have been ridiculing Black women like Ida B Wells-Barnett for choosing Black men and raising their children since the 19th Century.
In 1895, Wells married Ferdinand L. Barnett. She set an early precedent as one of the first married American women to keep her own last name along with her husband’s. The couple had four children: Charles, Herman, Ida, and Alfreda. In her autobiography, A Divided Duty, Wells-Barnett describes the difficulty she had splitting her time between her family and her work. She continued to work after the birth of her first child, traveling and bringing the infant Charles with her. Instead of supporting her, Susan B. Anthony said she seemed “distracted.”
(via le-kif-kif)
#1465
White privilege is dressing up in all black with a veil and performing burlesque to “Strange Fruit”, a song made famous by Billie Holiday about the lynching of African Americans in the South. Maybe she was trying to be political, maybe she wasn’t. But for a white Canadian to make lyrics about “black bodies swinging from the poplar trees” about how sexy she is while she gets her kit off is at best an egregious display of privilege. At worst, it’s just straight up ignorant racism.
Network of Black Farmers Calls New York Times Investigation ‘Inaccurate’ - COLORLINES
Black farmers are once again in the spotlight, but this time they’re defending themselves against accusations of fraud. Just a few years after winning a landmark $1.33 billion settlement for decades of discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the New York Times published a deeply critical look at those court judgments The Times’ investigation alleges widespread fraud and questions whether similar settlements should be made with Latino and women farmers, as mandated by the Obama administration’s political appointees in the Justice and Agriculture Departments.
The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud.
Soon after the Times published its findings, the Network of Black Farmers issued a point-by-point rebuttal of the paper’s claims. When I reached the network’s Heather Gray by phone this morning, she underlined an important point. “The New York Times inappropriately targeted black farmers who are the victims [of discrimination] rather than talking about the behavior of the Agriculture Department, which has for years denied its services to its [black] U.S. citizens.”
See a portion of the farmers’ rebuttal after the jump.
- The story is largely anecdotal - sure there are people at USDA who are vested in the system who refuse to admit the undeniable legacy of discrimination at the department.
- The presentation of data is misleading. The number of farms operating in 1997 is essentially irrelevant. The case covers a 16 year period during which there were over 125,000 African Americans engaged in farming at one time or another.
- Minimal documentation was required because 1) USDA destroyed the denied loan applications and civil rights complaints; 2) the case went back to 1981 so many folks had lost or destroyed their own records. It went back to 1981 because USDA shut down its civil rights office in the early 80’s so minorities were denied the opportunity to present their claims at a time when they would have had records.
- Out of 503 cases referred to the FBI, they chose to investigate 60 - 3/10 of 1 percent of the 22000 claims. That is minuscule.
- The denial of credit and benefits has had a devastating impact on African American farmers. According to the Census of Agriculture, the number of African American farmers has declined from 925,000 in 1920 to approximately 18,000 in 1992. CRAT Report at 14. The farms of many African American farmers were foreclosed upon, and they were forced out of farming. Those who managed to stay in farming often were subject to humiliation and degradation at the hands of the county supervisors and were forced to stand by powerless, as white farmers received preferential treatment.
(via sara-huynh)
![thepeoplesrecord:
93% of detained youth are black: New Orleans police chief says curfew enforcement isn’t racially biasedMarch 29, 2013
New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas says his city’s curfew policies are put in place because children “are less likely to get hurt or hurt someone else” if they are at home during the nighttime. But youth advocates are arguing curfew enforcement disproportionately targets poor, African-American youth.
Serpas denies his officers engage in profiling youths when they enforce curfew laws but data analyzed by The Times-Picayune found that in 2011, 93 percent of youths detained at the city’s curfew center were black. (New Orleans is 33 percent white & 60 percent black.)
A 2000 study of New Orleans’ curfew law concluded that it did not deter crime. The Times-Picayune summarizes the report:
[The study called] “Do Juvenile Curfew Laws Work? A Time-Series Analysis of the New Orleans Law” found that the city’s ordinance was ineffective because it didn’t cover older adolescents and young adults, who often perpetrate crime; and it excluded what are called the “afterschool hours,” when minors are most likely to commit offenses.
Source
In other news about cops targeting black youth, Floyd v. City of New York began this week, a landmark class action suit over NYPD’s Stop & Frisk tactic run on a racially-based arrest quota system.
5 million people have been stopped by NYPD’s Stop & Frisk. 4.3 million were black or Latino.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/0de3be6041a439b57a9f27e78d074086/tumblr_mkfo5bRnvp1r6m2leo1_500.jpg)
93% of detained youth are black: New Orleans police chief says curfew enforcement isn’t racially biased
March 29, 2013New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas says his city’s curfew policies are put in place because children “are less likely to get hurt or hurt someone else” if they are at home during the nighttime. But youth advocates are arguing curfew enforcement disproportionately targets poor, African-American youth.
Serpas denies his officers engage in profiling youths when they enforce curfew laws but data analyzed by The Times-Picayune found that in 2011, 93 percent of youths detained at the city’s curfew center were black. (New Orleans is 33 percent white & 60 percent black.)
A 2000 study of New Orleans’ curfew law concluded that it did not deter crime. The Times-Picayune summarizes the report:
[The study called] “Do Juvenile Curfew Laws Work? A Time-Series Analysis of the New Orleans Law” found that the city’s ordinance was ineffective because it didn’t cover older adolescents and young adults, who often perpetrate crime; and it excluded what are called the “afterschool hours,” when minors are most likely to commit offenses.
In other news about cops targeting black youth, Floyd v. City of New York began this week, a landmark class action suit over NYPD’s Stop & Frisk tactic run on a racially-based arrest quota system.
5 million people have been stopped by NYPD’s Stop & Frisk. 4.3 million were black or Latino.
(via le-kif-kif)
![knowledgeequalsblackpower:
theatlantic:
Farm-to-Table in Communities of Color
It’s true that, for youth of color, heading back to the farm recalls a fraught history of slavery and exploitive migrant labor. She says that immigrant youth often say, “Why would I go back to the farm that my immigrant parents worked so hard to get us off of?” For young people of color, claiming direct access to food by picking up the pitchfork at a local urban farm can feel like a step backwards.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
When it comes to funding, black farmers receive about one-third or less than what other farmers receive, which has resulted, Gail Myers points out, in black farmers losing their land. In fact, this asymmetry led a group of black farmers to sue the USDA for damages, claiming discriminatory treatment. The farmers agreed to a settlement, and in 1999, over 15,000 claimants received restitutions. Soon afterward, Native American, Latino, and female farmers stepped forward with their own civil rights lawsuits against the USDA. Discriminatory lending has cost the federal government billions in settlements.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/c2c33da47a7e04007dfa427afee34f6e/tumblr_ml2488deZH1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Farm-to-Table in Communities of Color
It’s true that, for youth of color, heading back to the farm recalls a fraught history of slavery and exploitive migrant labor. She says that immigrant youth often say, “Why would I go back to the farm that my immigrant parents worked so hard to get us off of?” For young people of color, claiming direct access to food by picking up the pitchfork at a local urban farm can feel like a step backwards.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
When it comes to funding, black farmers receive about one-third or less than what other farmers receive, which has resulted, Gail Myers points out, in black farmers losing their land. In fact, this asymmetry led a group of black farmers to sue the USDA for damages, claiming discriminatory treatment. The farmers agreed to a settlement, and in 1999, over 15,000 claimants received restitutions. Soon afterward, Native American, Latino, and female farmers stepped forward with their own civil rights lawsuits against the USDA. Discriminatory lending has cost the federal government billions in settlements.
(via akoaykayumanggi)
