Category Archives: racism

Disease of cultural appropriation infects Brits too! Glastonbury fashion: it’s all jumpers and headdresses at Worthy Farm | Music | The Guardian

As a three day party, tThere’s always a dress-up spirit at Glastonbury and the headdress has been making an impact. The takeup of Native American-style headdresses is controversial, with Chanel under fire from the Sioux Nation after putting similar feathered designs on the catwalk, but the message wasn’t received in Somerset..

via Glastonbury fashion: it’s all jumpers and headdresses at Worthy Farm | Music | The Guardian.

Israel demolishes mosque walls in Jerusalem’s Shufat camp | Maan News Agency

Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures since occupying the West Bank in 1967, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

via Israel demolishes mosque walls in Jerusalem’s Shufat camp | Maan News Agency.

Peace talks can now be held in Israeli jail? 23 Palestinian members of parliament in Israeli jails | Maan News Agency

Twenty-three Palestinian lawmakers are currently being held in Israeli jails, a majority of whom have been detained in the last two weeks during the Israeli arrest campaign across the West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Wednesday.

Eleven of the 23 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were detained prior to the campaign, the first of whom was Marwan Barghouthi in 2002.

The two most recently-detained lawmakers were taken on Tuesday night during a raid in Bethlehem.

More than 500 Palestinians have been detained in the last two weeks as part of an Israeli search for three Jewish teenagers who went missing from the Gush Etzion settlement in the West Bank.

Detainees who have been tried and sentenced:

1. Marwan Barghouthi, Ramallah, sentenced to five life sentences.

2. Ahmad Saadat, Ramallah, sentenced to thirty years.

3. Ahmad Atwan, Jerusalem, suspended sentence.

Administrative detainees being held without charge or trial:

1. Mahmoud al-Rimhi, Ramallah.

2. Abduljaber Fuqahaa, Ramallah.

3. Muhammad Jamal al-Natsheh, Hebron.

4. Hatem Qfish, Hebron.

5. Nizar Ramadan, Hebron.

6. Muhammad Badr, Hebron.

7. Muhammad Abu Teir, Jerusalem.

8. Yassir Mansour, Nablus.

Detained during the recent Israeli campaign, some of whom have been sentenced to administrative detention:

1. Aziz Dweik, Hebron.

2. Hassan Youssif, Ramallah.

3. Ahmad Tahtuh, Jerusalem.

4. Abdulrahman Zeidan, Tulkarem.

5. Ibrahim Abu Salem, Jerusalem.

6. Husni al-Burini, Nablus.

7. Azzam Salhab, Hebron.

8. Ahmad Mubarak, Ramallah.

9. Ahmad al-Hajj ali, Nablus.

10. Ayman Daraghmah, Tubas.

11. Khalid Tafish, Bethlehem.

12. Anwar Zboun, Bethlehem.

via 23 Palestinian members of parliament in Israeli jails | Maan News Agency.

Child Migrants and Media Half-Truths

the “solution” suggested blames the victims for risking the journey.

So why does the mainstream press seek to place the blame on the parents and a supposed softening of immigration policy?

Because the alternative to blaming migrant families themselves is unpalatable to them.

The alternative is to accept that the Central American and North American Free Trade Agreements have left thousands of youth with no economic opportunities.

It is to accept that US security aid for drug wars has armed and aggravated violence in Mexico and Central America.

It is to understand the high cost of supporting the Honduran coup and how the Honduran people and the US population continue to pay that price, as out migration has surged over 500% in the past two years and human rights violations, instability and violence are skyrocketing.

via Child Migrants and Media Half-Truths.

White Bus Driver Concocted Attack by Black Youths in Dayton | Hatewatch

The department conducted extensive ballistics testing on the gun at the police academy on April 10. Investigators acquired eight copies of “The Message.” The bus company supplied several uniform shirts similar to the one Wagoner wore that day. Over and over lab techs fired bullets from the .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol gun into the shirt, the book and a gel substance simulating the effect of bullets ripping into a human body. Each time the result was the same. There was no miracle. The bullets traveled 15 inches into the gel, according to the Dayton Daily News.

via White Bus Driver Concocted Attack by Black Youths in Dayton | Hatewatch.

France shocked by violence against Roma | Europe | DW.DE | 20.06.2014

The reactions in social networks and online news portals were often racist and included expressions of support for Darius’ torturers. “If the state can’t provide security, it’s only logical that people will practice vigilante justice,” one French Twitter user wrote. What dangers that view brings with it has become clear in the past few days.

via France shocked by violence against Roma | Europe | DW.DE | 20.06.2014.

Outrage over Japan’s review of sex slave apology | Asia | DW.DE | 19.06.2014

Real men would just admit that the guys in charge during war were jerks and stand by the apology and not start the shaming of victims again. Either that or accept

The argument of the nationalists is that these women were merely common prostitutes who were assisted in plying their trade by civilian brokers. Under pressure from his conservative supporters, the Abe administration announced in February that it was setting up a team to “re-examine and understand the background” of the Kono statement, including attempting to verify the testimony provided by former comfort women.

via Outrage over Japan’s review of sex slave apology | Asia | DW.DE | 19.06.2014.

Kidnappings put Netanyahu back on offense – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

The kidnapping of the three teenage boys suddenly dominated both the media and the public agenda. And it was with the same rapidity that Netanyahu regained his stature as the responsible adult in the room, and the person with the most diplomatic and security mileage in the government and Cabinet.

In an instant, the kidnapping erased any memory of one of the, politically speaking, worst weeks Netanyahu has had in his current term, if not the worst. His unfocused, emotional plotting to thwart the election of his sworn enemy Reuven Rivlin came crashing down around him, and he was forced to congratulate the newly elected president, though he did so without any show of enthusiasm.

via Kidnappings put Netanyahu back on offense – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

With a Dream of Return: Deportees in Mexicali | Latina Lista

“I feel like I am drowning but everybody around me is breathing.”

This is what I was told by Esmeralda, a dreamer who grew up in Arizona, and in 2010 was detained at a checkpoint, coerced to sign her voluntary departure, and was deported to Mexico, where she was told her high-school diploma from the U.S. was not valid. Esmeralda’s story is one of the 2 million people deported by U.S. Immigration authorities during the Obama administration–the largest number of deportations in the history of the U.S.

In March 2014, I traveled to the border city of Mexicali, where thousands of people are deported every month. Last year alone, it is estimated that 113,539 people were deported to Mexicali, a city with a population of 700,000. There, in the City of the Deportee, I visited the Hotel of the Migrant, a place that have assisted 200,000 deportees since 2010. The Hotel of the Migrant is a former abandoned Hotel that now serves as the only city shelter open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Managed by a non-profit organization, the hotel is located just a few blocks from the Calexico Port of Entry. Usually, deportees are dropped off in the middle of the night in poor conditions.

via With a Dream of Return: Deportees in Mexicali | Latina Lista.

28 injured, 8 detained in fierce clashes at Al-Aqsa | Maan News Agency

Twenty-eight Palestinians were injured and eight detained during clashes that broke out after Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City after Friday prayers.

Israeli forces stormed the holy compound, which is the third-holiest site in Islam, after worshipers began marching in support of more than 125 Palestinian administrative detainees who have been on hunger strike for more than 50 days.

The march left through the Moroccan and Chain Gates, at which point groups of special forces began firing stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets toward worshipers.

Special forces also began beating worshipers with batons, including ambulance crews and journalists on the scene, while another Israeli unit besieged the worshipers in the Al-Aqsa Qibli Mosque and closed the doors and launched stun grenades and pepper gas into it.

A fourth unit besieged worshipers inside the Marwani Mosque, and fired stun grenades and gas at worshipers, who were mostly elderly, according to the Al-Aqsa mosque director.

After the end of clashes, police set up a checkpoint at the doors of the Al-Aqsa mosque and began checking identity cards. They detained eight Palestinians during the checks, according to police.

via 28 injured, 8 detained in fierce clashes at Al-Aqsa | Maan News Agency.

If this were US, British, or German police doing this to worshipers – what would we say?