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The Logic of the Michael Dunn Jury

 

The most amazing feature of our era is the belief that 300 years of racist policy gives no tell on our daily lives. The second is the belief that juries are somehow beyond reproach.

 

This is about whether we will live in candor or live in flattery. This is about whether we will continue the dishonorable tradition of leaving uncomfortable business to be inherited by our children…

 

A very wise man wrote me the other day and said he would have been happier if Dunn had been convicted of first-degree murder, gotten 15 years, and then was released to try to pick up the pieces of his life. And I think that really gets to the point. This is not about the ruination of white people—individual or collective. This is about coping with a heritage of regarding black people as subhuman.”

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

“Proof that Michael Dunn’s mistrial wasn’t about confusion over self-defense”

 

@xtinasterbenz

 

See on www.theatlantic.com

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What Happens When A White Guy Tries To Steal A Car And What Happens When A Black Guy Tries

Stereotypes persist.

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

I think there are a couple videos on the “What would you do” show along these lines.

 

One where a white guy and then a black guy are trying to break a bicycle lock,

 

Another were some white guys then some black guys are vandalizing a car.

 

See on www.businessinsider.com

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Walker’s “Appeal”

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““Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the United States of America”(1829) by David Walker, a free Black American, was a forceful condemnation of slavery and racism. In America it was a guiding light for Blacks. It radicalized Whites. It was banned in the South.”

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

I grew up going to majority White churches.

 

I never heard a mumbling word about racism or oppression.

 

@getgln

See on abagond.wordpress.com

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“It was kind of like slavery”

 

“Backbreaking labor, vicious beatings, unmarked graves, childhoods lost—five men return to the scene of their nightmares.

 

Dozier was unforgiving whatever your skin color. But the white kids were given vocational work while the blacks did grunt labor. (The school profited from both.) “It was brutal work,” Huntly says. “We were out there in the cold cutting cane and planting peas and pulling corn. I was admitted to the third grade when I was there, and I spent two years and about four months there, and the day I left I was still in the third grade. So that’s the kind of education I got.”

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

Archaeologists have found 55 burials – 24 more than previously documented.

See on www.motherjones.com

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We Always Judge From Where We Stand

 

“When I had that debate with the aldermen about the proposed sagging pants ban in St. Louis, I was on the phone with my ward’s representative. One of my arguments was that this law would be enforced along racial lines. I pointed to the fact that St. Louis arrests black people at 18 times the rate of white people for marijuana offenses despite similar rates of usage. He quickly countered that he knows white people who smoke marijuana, but they do it in the privacy of their own homes where no one can see them. “They’re not out on their front porch doing it!” he cried.

 

Obviously, he’s making some pretty sweeping generalizations about who uses marijuana how, but let’s go ahead and take him at his word for the sake of argument. White people smoke weed behind closed doors; black people do it on their front porches where they can be seen. The implication is that the white choice is the standard (“Sure, everyone does it, but these people do it the right way.”) To then say that a deviation from that choice is substandard (and thus deserving of an arrest) ignores the inequality present in what gets read as a “criminal” act.”
See on www.balancingjane.com

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The Destruction of Black Wall Street

 

“Greenwood, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa, was the type of community that African Americans are still, today, attempting to reclaim and rebuild.  It was modern, majestic, sophisticated and unapologetically…”

 

Linda Christenson writes the following:

 

“The term “race riot” does not adequately describe the events of May 31—June 1, 1921 in Greenwood… In fact, the term itself implies that both blacks and whites might be equally to blame for the lawlessness and violence. The historical record documents a sustained and murderous assault on black lives and property. This assault was met by a brave but unsuccessful armed defense of their community by some black World War I veterans and others.

 

During the night and day of the riot, deputized whites killed more than 300 African Americans. They looted and burned to the ground 40 square blocks of 1,265 African American homes, including hospitals, schools, and churches, and destroyed 150 businesses. White deputies and members of the National Guard arrested and detained 6,000 black Tulsans who were released only upon being vouched for by a white employer or other white citizen. Nine thousand African Americans were left homeless and lived in tents well into the winter of 1921.
Read more at EBONY http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-wall-street-405#ixzz2ttGF3GVa
Follow us: @EbonyMag on Twitter | EbonyMag on Facebook
See on www.ebony.com

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Last Night on Jeopardy No One Wanted to Answer Qs About Black History

Happy Black History Month, everyone, courtesy of last night’s all-white College Jeopardy panel! In the second round of play, the contestants sailed through five of the categories–including “International Cinema Showcase,” “Weather Verbs,” and “Kiwi Fauna”–but avoided the sixth like the, ahem, black plague. That category was “African-American History.”

See on jezebel.com

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Border Patrol agent shoots, kills migrant who threw rocks

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has shot and killed an apparently undocumented migrant who allegedly threw rocks at the agent, striking his face, near San Diego.

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

U.S. / Mexico border news sounds a lot like Palestine / Israel border news.

See on www.cnn.com