US Race Relations
[MP3] Pharoahe Monch – Stand Your Ground
Pharoahe Monch speaks on the controversial Stand Your Ground law that (along with race) was at the centre of Trayvon Martin case. Amazing artwork too!
[via StupidDOPE]
Kitchen Link Roundup: This Week (or so) in Racism….
42: the biopic about ballplayer and civil rights icon, Jackie Robinson’s experiences as the first Black player in Major League baseball comes out this month and it’s amazing.
Infographic: are there really more Black Men in jail than college?
Mona Scott-Young Responds To “Love & Hip Hop” Critics: “Don’t Tell Me I’m Not Changing Lives” [Clutch magazine]
English Premier League soccer team, Sunderland FC hires avowed and unapologetic Italian Fascist, Paolo Di Canio as their team manager. WTTF??!?
Intimacy Intervention: “My Husband Uses Racial Slurs During Sex” [Essence.com]
Film director, Antoine Fuqua Says, “Stop Crying Racism At Hollywood… Put In The Work” [Shadow and Act]
Is “Pass The Mic”, this week’s Grid magazine oral history cover feature story on MuchMusic, as told by their on-air VJ’s & show hosts, racist for not including any on-air personalities of color? Soulafrodisiac examines the case.
“Once again the Junos TV slots do not reflect true diversity in music. Still a Molson Canadian Rocks World I guess….” – an industry friend on the recently announced artist performance line-up for the Canadian music industry award show, the Junos.
This one is kind of obvious but I had to include it anyway, NYT Op-Ed: “The G.O.P.’s Diversity Deserts”
And finally, there’s this:
Brad Paisley ft. LL Cool J – “Accidental Racist”:
Brad Paisley On ‘Accidental Racist’: ‘I Wouldn’t Change A Thing’ [Huff Post]
[News] Jordan Davis: the next Trayvon Martin?
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Another Trayvon Martin? “In Florida last week, a gun enthusiast killed an unarmed teenager for playing his music too loud….” [Salon]
Here we go again. We haven’t even settled the Trayvon Martin case and another maniac is invoking FL’s asinine ‘Stand Your Ground’ law under very, very dubious circumstances. I am truly getting tired of asking, “When does this end?” Absolute.f-cking.travesty. Michael Dunn is out of his mind and deserves to be jailed for a long, long time. The fact that whether that will happen is in serious question is almost the saddest thing of all. Jordan Davis, R.I.P.
[Video] 17 Year Old’s Secret iPod Recording Captures the Reality Behind the NYPD’s Stop and Frisk Policy
I don’t do this often (ever??) but EVERYONE SHOULD RETWEET, REBLOG, POST AND OTHERWISE SHARE THIS VIDEO. It’s that important!
From The Nation:
Exclusive audio obtained by The Nation of a stop-and-frisk carried out by the New York Police Department freshly reveals the discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy is being implemented on the city’s streets.
On June 3, 2011, three plainclothes New York City Police officers stopped a Harlem teenager named Alvin and two of the officers questioned and frisked him while the third remained in their unmarked car. Alvin secretly captured the interaction on his cell phone, and the resulting audio is one of the only known recordings of stop-and-frisk in action.
In the course of the two-minute recording, the officers give no legally valid reason for the stop, use racially charged language and threaten Alvin with violence. Early in the stop, one of the officers asks, “You want me to smack you?” When Alvin asks why he is being threatened with arrest, the other officer responds, “For being a fucking mutt.” Later in the stop, while holding Alvin’s arm behind his back, the first officer says, “Dude, I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arm, then I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ face.”
‘Stop and Frisk’ is just a terrible, terrible program despite what Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly may think. Besides the fact that this kid had been stopped before that day, the amazing thing is, he’s the son of a cop (‘on the job’ in their parlance) and known to the police who stopped him as having been part of their Explorers after-school program. Clearly, as people of color have long known, no-one is immune and social programs meant to bridge the gap may not be enough to overcome the level of dysfunction and damage that marks relations between that community and the police. And sad to say but I feel Alvin’s pain. And BTW, don’t think this is just an NYC thing either….
[News] The Marissa Alexander Case Proves Florida’s So-Called Stand Your Ground Law is Bullsh-t!
To refresh your memory, the Stand Your Ground law is the law and justification that kept George Zimmerman out of jail for so long after he gunned down Trayvon Marin in cold blood. Here’s the background on this story where, surprise, surprise, Stand Your Ground supposedly did not apply:
Marissa Alexander, the 31-year-old Florida woman who fired what her family calls a warning shot at her abusive husband, was sentenced Friday morning to 20 years in prison.
Alexander was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing into a wall near her husband and his two young children at their Jacksonville home in 2010. Alexander has maintained that she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone and that she was standing her ground against a man who had over the course of nearly a year punched and choked her on several different occasions. Alexander says that she believed she was protected that day under the state’s Stand Your Ground Law, which gives people wide discretion in using deadly force to defend themselves.
A judge and a jury disagreed.
The State Attorney’s Office offered a plea bargain that would have sent Alexander to prison for three years, but she rejected it, hoping to convince a jury that she had been defending herself when she fired the weapon.
Alexander’s case has become the latest battleground in a fight against what Alexander’s supporters call the misapplication of the Stand Your Ground Law and Florida’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which offer stiff sentences for crimes involving guns.
According to Florida’s 10-20-Life statutes, anyone who pulls a gun during a crime receives a mandatory 10-year sentence. Firing a gun during the commission of a crime equals a mandatory 20-year sentence. Anyone convicted of shooting and killing another person during a crime is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Alexander, who did not have a criminal record before the shooting, was convicted of felony assault with a gun.
Hmm, now I wonder what the difference is here?? F-cking travesty. Florida might be an even crazier and more racist state than Arizona! CLICK HERE to read more on MArissa Alexander’s case.