Chaumtoli Huq was arrested while standing in front of the Times Square Ruby Tuesday, court papers show.
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Source: www.dnainfo.com
Activism
Marc Thompson of “If These Halls Could Talk” missing – his car found with burned body inside
Marc Thompson of “If These Halls Could Talk” missing.
His car found burning in the Chico / Oroville area.
A dead body was found inside that cannot be identified.
We are fearful that the body found is Marc.
If anyone has seen or heard from cast member Marc Thompson please contact the Chico, California, police (530-538-7321)
Please share and hold the police department accountable for a thorough investigation.
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Source: communityvillageus.blogspot.com
Death and Racism
The article on The Root hit me hard;
Reject the “He was a good kid” or “He was a criminal” narrative and lift up the “Black lives matter” narrative.Those who knew him say Brown was a good kid. But that’s not why his death is tragic. His death isn’t tragic because he was on his way to college the following week. His death is tragic because he was a human being and his life mattered. The good-kid narrative might provoke some sympathy, but what it really does is support the lie that as a rule black people, black men in particular, have a norm of violence or criminal behavior. The good-kid narrative says that this kid didn’t deserve to die because his goodness was an exception to the rule. This is wrong. This kid didn’t deserve to die, period. Similarly, reject the “He was a criminal” narrative surrounding the convenience store robbery because even if Brown did steal some cigars and have a scuffle with the shopkeeper, that is still not a justification for his killing. All black lives matter, not just the ones we deem to be “good.”
It caused me to think back about why, during the George Zimmerman case, I did not debate nor defend against accusations that Trayvon was a “thug.” Here we are again with Michael Brown, and there are folks trying to posture Michael as deserving of death because he was not a “good kid. “
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Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com
Thank you @XenaBb7 for the HT
Andy Lopez mural goes up in Roseland
Three miles from where 13-year-old Andy Lopez was shot and killed by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy nearly a year ago, a mural of the boy went up.
Santa Rosa artist Mario Uribe installed Friday the temporary 8-foot-by-16-foot mural along the side of a vacant gas station at West Avenue and Sebastopol Road in the heart of Roseland. It’s one of the busiest intersections in the southwest Santa Rosa neighborhood, which was rattled by the fatal Oct. 22 shooting by Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Erick Gelhaus, who reportedly mistook the airsoft BB gun Lopez was carrying for an AK-47 assault rifle that it was designed to resemble.
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Source: justicecoalitionforandylopez.com
Camden Turns Around With New Police Force
Since moving to a county-run police department, Camden, N.J., one of the nation’s poorest and most dangerous cities, has altered its culture to overcome years of mistrust.
Source: www.nytimes.com
Ferguson’s Mayor Faces The Heat As Forum Dissects City’s Divisions [AUDIO]
An audience member shows Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III a rubber bullet wound that he says he received during unrest in the north St. Louis County city. A forum sponsored by St. Louis Public Radio became heated, with the biggest ire being directed at Knowles. NPR’s Michel Martin is at center.
Credit Jason Rosenbaum, St. Louis Public Radio
A forum Thursday evening peering into Ferguson’s longstanding tensions as well as the St. Louis region’s racial divisions became angry and heated, with most of a crowd’s ire directed at the town’s mayor.
Audience members expressed searing criticism of Ferguson’s governance and leadership, both of which have come under fire since one of the Ferguson’s police officers shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
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Source: news.stlpublicradio.org
Russell Brand absolutely demolishes Fox News over Ferguson coverage
On the latest episode of his Web series, the British comedian takes Fox to task for its one-sidedness VIDEO
Source: www.salon.com
Why All Communities Must Demand an End to Police Brutality
The images out of Ferguson, Missouri, these past two weeks have been shocking: tear gas blanketing suburban streets, law enforcement creating a war zone and defiant protesters braving it all. But it is important to remember that what started Ferguson’s fight is far too common: the police killing of an unarmed black teen.
African-Americans are the primary targets of law-enforcement profiling and violence, as the killings of Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, Jonathan Ferrell and Eric Garner all attest. But during this past week, Latino, Asian-American, Arab-American and Muslim organizations have all released statements of solidarity informed by similar experiences with discriminatory law enforcement practices, as well as an urgency to collectively identify and implement solutions.
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Source: www.thenation.com
My life as a colony: a self-portrait in four parts -by Claire Marie O’Brien
“It’s funny how much people hate
to see me standing at the Gates,
presuming I can give expression
to real, system-wide oppression.
To them I say,” Well you tell me
why nothing here applies to me.
Why every fundamental right
applies to everyone in sight
except for those you single out
as people who just do not count.”
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Source: electricinthedesert.wordpress.com
Check the whole post to get the full impact.
It’s haunting and powerful.
White America’s Response to the Killing of Mike Brown…
“Last night, I made the abominable mistake of reading the comments under Fox News’ Facebook page’s post of the alleged Mike Brown “strong-arm robbery” video. What I read was altogether infuriating and heartbreaking, yet I could not stop reading. Many of the comments, by what appeared to be “average white Americans,” were seething, sarcastic, racist, and steeped in hate. They called Mike Brown a “thug” and spoke about his killing in a bizarre celebratory way―some implicitly and others explicitly expressing how the video justifies his murder. Some of the comments even unnecessarily brought up Trayvon Martin, also speaking about him in the most derogatory and disparagingly of ways. These white Facebook users were so quick to dehumanize, demonize, generalize, speak hatefully, and justify the death of a young black man―in rhetoric oozing with racism, white supremacy, and white privilege―that I began to wonder if they were able to acknowledge that Mike Brown was a human. How and why do they hate him so much?
It made me sick to my stomach.
I think the part that was most troubling to me was the fact that most of these white people making these horrendous comments were not the anonymous, faceless, cowardly, racist internet trolls that I often encounter on Twitter―though enraging, I can somehow shrug them off as “fake.” These people had faces, rather. These folks were seeminglyreal people, behind seemingly real Facebook accounts―some of their profile pictures were family pictures or pictures of them with their kids, even lovingly embracing them. I imagine they are people who have authentic, caring relationships with individuals who they choose to love deeply―friends, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers. But the hatred they verbally spewed for a dead black teenager they do not even know, and the dehumanizing nature of their discourse, led me to begin to see them void of humanity―their dehumanization of Mike Brown was the cause of my dehumanization of them. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s truly ugly.
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Source: thoughtsofbrown.com