Category Archives: racism

For Whites Sensing Decline, Donald Trump Unleashes Words of Resistance – The New York Times

This year, for the first time in decades, overt white nationalism re-entered national politics. In Iowa, a new “super PAC” paid for pro-Trump robocalls featuring Jared Taylor, a self-described race realist, and William Johnson, a white nationalist and the chairman of the American Freedom Party. (“We don’t need Muslims,” Mr. Taylor urged recipients of the calls. “We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”) David Duke, the Louisiana lawmaker turned anti-Semitic radio host, encouraged listeners to vote for Mr. Trump.Modern political convention dictates that candidates receiving such embraces instantly and publicly spurn them. In 2008, when it was revealed that a minister who endorsed the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, had made anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim remarks, Mr. McCain forcefully repudiated them.Mr. Trump did something different.Asked about the robocall, Mr. Trump seemed to sympathize with its message while affecting a vague half-distance. “Nothing in this country shocks me; I would disavow it, but nothing in this country shocks me,” Mr. Trump told a CNN anchor. “People are angry.”Pressed, Mr. Trump grew irritable, saying: “How many times you want me to say it? I said, ‘I disavow.’”Asked six weeks later about Mr. Duke’s support, he said he had been unaware of it: “David Duke endorsed me? O.K. All right. I disavow, O.K.?” Later, on Twitter, he repeated the phrase: “I disavow.”Mr. Trump has often used those words when confronted by reporters. The phrase is comfortingly nonspecific, a disavowal of everything and nothing. And whatever Mr. Trump’s intentions, it has been powerfully reassuring to people on the far right.“There’s no direct object there,” Mr. Spencer said. “It’s kind of interesting, isn’t it?”Mr. Trump’s new supporters took his approach as a signal of support. In an interview on a “pro-white” radio show called “The Political Cesspool,” Mr. Johnson, of the American Freedom Party, praised Mr. Trump’s handling of the controversy.“He disavowed us,” Mr. Johnson acknowledged, “but he explained why there is so much anger in America that I couldn’t have asked for a better approach from him.”

Source: For Whites Sensing Decline, Donald Trump Unleashes Words of Resistance – The New York Times

Dismantle Fear and Ignorance to Eradicate Racism, Raise Consciousness, and Embrace Equality. | Rebelle Society

One night after leaving work with my manager, who was also a friend, she asked me to hail her a cab. “Hey, I follow your orders at work, but once we leave the building, we’re equals.” I felt annoyed by her demanding behavior.“Look,” she said, her eyes averted with embarrassment, “they won’t stop for me.”I didn’t get it. I totally thought she was messing with me.“And why won’t they stop for you?”“Because I’m black.”No way. That couldn’t be true. It was the late nineties. Surely, we had evolved to see beyond the color of someone’s skin. I told her as much.She sighed. “Okay, stand back and watch.”She stepped up to the curb and I stepped back by the building. One free cab passed her by, then another. When the third one passed, my jaw dropped and I had tears in my eyes.“See?” she said. She looked embarrassed, and I felt like the biggest jerk in the world for not believing her. Upset that humanity still didn’t seem to remember.We traded places. No sooner did I hold up my hand that a cab came to a screeching halt in front of me. I opened the door for her to climb in.  He looked back at her and then forward, rolling his eyes.

Source: Dismantle Fear and Ignorance to Eradicate Racism, Raise Consciousness, and Embrace Equality. | Rebelle Society

His name is Philando Castile. He was murdered by the police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota | 3CHICSPOLITICO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=486KsA193EE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlZVCyJoz0o

 

Philando Castile was stopped for a “routine ” traffic stop. AND NOW IS DEAD!! Asked for his information,  he volunteered to his murderer that he had a weapon, because he had a  permit. …

Source: His name is Philando Castile. He was murdered by the police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Can We Handle the Truth?

We are a nation obsessed with fake news sites and conspiracy theories—which may very well be paving the way to victory for a president for whom fiction always trumps the facts.

Source: Can We Handle the Truth?

The explosion of fake news websites giving way to memes perpetuating untruths does more than just exploit readers for monetized clicks; it fosters a socially toxic mistrust of all media reports as politically biased fantasy, irrespective of the legitimacy (“professionalism”) of the outlets. One of the strangest examples of our current post-truth condition was a viral tweet claiming to show a female Trump supporter who’d been beaten up by “liberals.” There had indeed been violence at anti-Trump protests, but this image was not evidence of those altercations. In fact, it was Ash vs. Evil Dead actress Samara Weaving doing a makeup test. On-screen, the special-effects fakery is acceptable and even necessary to advance plotlines, etc. Remove the context, though, and what do you have? An illusion out-of-the-box becomes a corrupt political narrative.

Netanyahu asks to expel Arab MK, Hanin Zoabi, from Knesset – PNN

Earlier on Wednesday Zoabi caused an uproar on the Knesset floor when she strongly condemned the Israeli forces’ videotaped attack on Turkish activists who were killed during their participation in Freedom Flotilla in 2010. The murderer has to pay compensation for the families of Turkish victims, she said during a debate discussing the newly-signed deal between Israel and Turkey. Zoabi considered the deal as a “murder confession.”Zoabi demanded the Israeli government issue an apology both to the “political activists” aboard the Mavi Marmara, on which she sailed in solidarity, and to herself, from those who “incited against [her] for six years.”During the debate, Israeli MKs tried to physically attack Zoabi following her address. Several MKs began shouting and moved toward the podium to complain. “Come hit me! Come hit me!” Zoabi shouted to the MKs who were pointing and yelling at her.As MKs mobbed the stage, Zoabi shouted “they murdered” and “shut up” repeatedly.When Deputy Knesset Speaker Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beytenu) asked her to apologize, Zoabi said: “The Israeli soldiers who murdered are the ones who need to apologize! You need to apologize!” The Joint List strongly denounced the attack, considering it a “fascist assault.” It added, “The racist and bloody attack against Joint List MKs has notably escalated, calling for an end to the continued incitement against Arab MKs and Hanan Zoabi in particular”.

Source: Netanyahu asks to expel Arab MK, Hanin Zoabi, from Knesset – PNN

Roughly half of Hispanics have experienced discrimination | Pew Research Center

Roughly six-in-ten Hispanics (58%) say race relations in the U.S. are generally bad, a similar share to blacks. But when it comes to the best approach to improving race relations, Hispanic views align more with those of whites. Among Hispanics and whites, more say people should focus on what different racial and ethnic groups have in common rather than what makes them unique. By contrast, blacks are split evenly on the issue.For Latinos, concepts of identity and race are complex and varied. About one-in-four Hispanics in the U.S. identify as Afro-Latino, and a quarter say they are of an indigenous background, according to the Pew Research Center National Survey of Latinos. At the same time, two-thirds of Latinos say their Hispanic background is a part of their racial identity. (The U.S. Census Bureau’s forms describe “Hispanic” as an ethnic origin and not a race.)An estimated 56.6 million Hispanics lived in the U.S. in 2015, a fast-growing population with diverse origins and many who are bilingual. Millions of people from Latin America have immigrated to the U.S. in recent decades, driving Hispanic population growth in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2014, there were 19.3 million Hispanic immigrants in the U.S., and this group accounts for nearly half of the nation’s immigrant population.Some Latinos have long expressed concerns over policies that target unauthorized immigrants, disapproving of deportations by the federal government as well as state laws like California’s Proposition 187 in 1994, which denied public services to unauthorized immigrants, and more recently Arizona’s SB 1070, which allows police to check the immigration status of suspected unauthorized immigrants so long as an officer is enforcing other laws.The race survey also found that many Hispanics discuss racial inequality on a regular basis with family and friends. About six-in-ten Hispanics (62%) say the topic of racial inequality comes up often or sometimes in conversations, a share similar to that of whites (59%). By comparison, 74% of blacks say the same.

Source: Roughly half of Hispanics have experienced discrimination | Pew Research Center

North Carolina’s Factory Farms Produce 15,000 Olympic Pools Worth of Waste Each Year | Civil Eats

Elsie Herring stays indoors on the days the industrial hog farm next door sprays manure from a lagoon-like holding pit across the field that ends eight feet from her kitchen window. Because a filthy mist coats her property if the wind is blowing from the west, Herring has learned to avoid activities like sitting on her porch, grilling outside, hanging laundry on the line, opening windows, and drinking water from the well. Herring lives in Duplin County, North Carolina, on a plot of land her family has owned for more than a century. Located in the eastern part of the state, Duplin contains more than 18.5 million confined animals, including 2.3 million hogs. In Herring’s part of the state, pigs outnumber people almost 40 to one. “You can smell the odor inside,” 67-year-old Herring says. “The feces, the ammonia—all that stuff—we have to breathe it in, because we have to breathe.” On top of physical symptoms like headaches, stomachaches, excessive coughing, watery eyes, and the urge to vomit, area residents often experience anxiety and depression from the sense of helplessness they feel and the lack of relief from the stench, Herring says. Last week, environmental groups including the Waterkeeper Alliance, Environmental Working Group, and North Carolina Riverkeeper organizations addressed what they see as “yawning gaps in the North Carolina state agricultural regulatory system” by releasing a collection of maps and data on the 6,500 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—and their accompanying waste lagoons—in the Tarheel State.

Source: North Carolina’s Factory Farms Produce 15,000 Olympic Pools Worth of Waste Each Year | Civil Eats

Britain sees spike in hate crimes after Brexit vote | Europe | DW.COM | 28.06.2016

On Sunday morning, staff at the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in Hammersmith, west London, woke up to an unpleasant surprise: racist graffiti daubed over the entrance of the building. This was not an isolated incident. In Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, cards saying “Leave the EU” and “No more Polish vermin” were found outside St Peter’s School. An 11-year-old Polish child told reporters that the leaflets had made him feel “really sad.” Similar leaflets were put through people’s doors in the area. “As an eastern European, I feel worried,” says Ana Petrov, a Bulgarian national who has lived in southern England for three years. “I have built my home here but now I wonder if I speak in Bulgarian on the phone in public, will someone shout at me that I should leave? Or worse?” According to initial police figures, there has been a sharp spike in hate crimes since last week’s referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU: an increase of 57 percent in reported incidents between Thursday and Sunday, compared with the same days four weeks earlier. In addition to the incidents reported to police, accounts of verbal abuse have proliferated on social media. “I suddenly feel a lot further away from home,” German national Karoline Weber, who works in London, told DW. While much of the aggression has been targeted at EU nationals, non-white Britons have also been affected. BBC journalist Sima Kotecha was called a “Paki” while reporting on the responses to the Brexit vote in her home town of Basingstoke. Channel 4 News correspondent Ciaran Jenkins heard three people shout “send them home” in the space of five minutes as he reported on the referendum in Barnsley in northern England. “The attacks are mostly on eastern European migrants – but not all,” says Liz Fekete, director of the Institute for Race Relations. “What we’re observing is Muslim women are a prime target and a lot of children as well. A lot of damage has been done to social and community cohesion. There’s a hell of a lot of work to be done to repair that.”

Source: Britain sees spike in hate crimes after Brexit vote | Europe | DW.COM | 28.06.2016

Brexit: Nigel Farage tells European Parliament ‘Britain won’t be the last country to leave the EU’ – Brexit: UK EU Referendum – ABC News Beneath contempt for his support of racism!

“What the little people did, what the ordinary people did, what the people who have been oppressed over the last few years and seen their living standards go down … they rejected big politics, and they said ‘actually, we want our country back’. “I make one prediction this morning: The United Kingdom will not be the last member state to leave the European Union. The UK Independence Party leader, who was a key supporter of the Leave campaign, was booed as he told Parliament: “I know virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives or worked, worked in a business or worked in a trade.” After Brexit roadmap The British have spoken in their EU membership referendum and they want out. What happens to Europe now? Earlier, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker asked the UKIP leader why he had attended the session. The UKIP representatives had applauded after Mr Juncker had told Parliament: “We must respect British democracy and the way it has expressed its view.” “That’s the last time you are applauding here … and to some extent I’m really surprised you are here. You are fighting for the exit. The British people voted in favour of the exit. Why are you here?” Juncker said, breaking from his speech text.

Source: Brexit: Nigel Farage tells European Parliament ‘Britain won’t be the last country to leave the EU’ – Brexit: UK EU Referendum – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Zakia Jafri’s Fight Isn’t Over: Only 11 Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Gulbarg Massacre – The Ladies Finger

On 28th February, 2002, during the infamous Gujarat riots, 69 people living in Gulbarg Society, a Muslim locality in Ahmedabad, were dragged out of their homes by a Hindu mob. At least 35 were burnt alive, and 69 were killed in total. Over 14 years later, on 2nd June, 2016, a Special SIT Court convicted 24 people of the murders, and yesterday, completed their sentencing. Eleven people convicted for murder were sentenced to life imprisonment. Of the remaining 13 convicted on charges like arson and rioting, 12 were sentenced to a term of seven years imprisonment, while one was sentenced to 10 years. The Court has requested the Centre not to remit the sentences of those accused to life imprisonment even after they complete a term of fourteen years in prison, at which point the Centre has the discretion to remit the sentences. Amongst those brutally murdered in this massacre was Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. His widow Zakia Jafri has been relentlessly fighting for justice for him and the other victims of this massacre for 14 years. In June 2006, she filed a complaint alleging that the police refused to register an FIR against Narendra Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and several other ministers and top administrative officials. Her plea went unheard by the Gujarat High Court in 2007. In 2008, the Supreme Court took cognisance of the matter and ordered the Narendra Modi-led government in Gujarat to re-investigate some cases from the riots, including the Gulbarg Society one.

Source: Zakia Jafri’s Fight Isn’t Over: Only 11 Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Gulbarg Massacre – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger