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“The rich, giving part of their enormous earnings [to create universities], became known as philanthropists. These educational institutions did not encourage dissent; they trained the middlemen in the American system—the teachers, doctors, lawyers, administrators, engineers, technicians, politicians—those who would be paid to keep the system going, to be loyal buffers against trouble.”
-Howard Zinn
A People’s History of the United States
“Just a reminder that the year is 2009, and white people talking to black people is still a controversial issue in the Republican party.”
Phillip Morris at the Cleveland Plain Dealer has written a very apropos column on Anthony Sowell and the eleven women he murdered.
And as the unmistakable smell of rotting human flesh enveloped the neighborhood around Sowell’s house, a community shut its eyes and held it’s nose, while Sowell kept making his run to the beverage store.
The registered sexual predator in their midst made little effort to conceal the horrors that police say he perpetrated on women, but a neighborhood — and a city — blithely ignored the parade of women walking into Sowell’s home without ever walking out.
It appears that a serial killer was able to kill with abandon and confidence in a congested neighborhood because he knew that no one would bother to come looking.
The killer knew that on his streets, a black woman can simply disappear. No questions will be asked. He arrogantly told one of his victims, who managed to escape, that no one would come looking for her because she was a “crack bitch.”
This reminds us of the vast differences between what happens when a white woman, or an owning class woman, disappears versus a black woman, or poor woman. Not only were these women murdered, but no one was even seriously looking for them after they died. Even when relatives did note their absence, authorities declined to look into the matter. What’s the worth of a drug-addicted poor black woman? It should be the worth of a human being, but we have unmistakable tiers for determining who is worthy of society’s resources and emotional investment. Our own memories serve as evidence: when we think of missing women we heard about in the news, who comes to mind? Who’s searches made the media?
Newsweek recently had a story on this exact topic. It discusses a situation in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where ten women have been killed and several more are missing. Their profiles are strikingly similar to the women killed in Cleveland. All black. All poor. Most with a history of drugs.
“If it was someone of a different race, things would have been dealt with the first time around; it wouldn’t have taken the fifth or sixth person to be murdered,” says Andre Knight, a city-council member and president of the local NAACP chapter. “All these women knew each other and lived in the same neighborhood; this is the sign of a potential serial killer. When it didn’t get the kind of attention it needed, it made the African-American community frustrated.”
In Rocky Mount, the police only recently warmed to the thought of a serial killer, perhaps because a killer hasn’t been handed to them on a silver platter as Anthony Sowell was (though there is a local sex offender who was charged with one of the murders in October). Work hours and community resources would have to be expended to determine the existence of a serial killer and locate hir. Not worth it if the killer only strikes poor black victims. The community of Rocky Mount had better hold onto their resources for something more important. Sports stadium, anyone?
Sowell was, unfortunately, quite smart, and knew things like this. He struck upon a ‘winning’ formula, which probably also stroked his ego for its boldness, its audacity. He preyed on women whom he knew society valued little. He didn’t even bother to hide his deeds. He killed women and in some cases just left the bodies where they lay, allowing the stink of his murders oppress the entire neighborhood. Everyone knew something or someone had died. And collectively, they accepted it with few questions. He knew they could smell it. When they did nothing, surely he felt that the neighborhood was complicit.
This case is really a story about complicity. Anthony Sowell did the raping and murdering. But so many others made it possible for him to do so. Don’t they deserve any credit for their work? The prison system, the police system, our “war on drugs”, drug dealers, the community, the city leaders, the economic system, institutional racism?
The number of people complicit in these rapes and murders of black women is staggering.
UPDATE: Someone who agrees with me:Cleveland, You Know You F&@ked Up, Right?
I hope I get a chance to catch this very interesting exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. It’s called “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas” and it looks into the lives of Americans who have both African and indigenous ancestry. Apparently, up to 60% of African Americans may have some indigenous ancestry.
From an article in Indian Country Today:
The exhibition takes the long view of history, traveling in a few short panels that illustrate the 1600s, when intermarriage and slavery brought Native peoples and African slaves together, to present-day families for whom this dual identity is indivisible.
…
Ideas about the identities of mixed-heritage people grow out of colonial policies, which viewed black and Native people as dangerous.“In colonial Mexico (the word) lobo, the wolf is the blend of Indian and black,” Tayac said. “The combination was thought to be dangerous, that you could have two colonized and enslaved people, if they come together it could be dangerous. How much did we absorb those ideas?”
This mixed heritage comes from times when Indians and Blacks were enslaved side-by-side, or when enslaved Blacks were able to escape white communities and chose to join Indian communities. Also, some Indians owned black slaves and subsequent intermarriage took place.
Whites were much more comfortable with Indians owning slaves than working alongside of, intermarrying, or welcoming blacks into their communities. If these two oppressed peoples could come together, why, it could threaten white hegemony!
Hallelujah! Of course it was money that finally convinced the racist City Council in this Louisiana Parish and not a sense of justice, but whatever. The result is that St. Bernard Parish will not hold a referendum to try banning multi-family (read: affordable) dwellings. This ban would naturally have targeted, SURPRISE! blacks and poor people of whichever race.
From the Times-Picayune:
After pressure from federal housing officials and a pending lawsuit in federal court, the St. Bernard Parish Council on Tuesday officially rescinded an item on this month’s special election ballot that would have given voters the chance to permanently ban large apartment complexes in the parish.
The move came on advice from the parish’s lawyers, who last month told the council that they believed the potential apartment ban would jeopardize federal financing for recovery projects and hurt the parish’s appeals of its ongoing fair housing lawsuit.
There is a lot of backstory to this, which you can discover by reading my previous posts on this topic: I, II, III, IV, and V.
Just another anti-gay hate crime.
From the Queens Chronicle:
[Jack Price] went to a 24-hour deli on College Point Boulevard and 18th Avenue around 3 a.m. to buy cigarettes. He told police two Hispanic men made reference to his homosexuality, calling him “faggot” and other names.
Police said Daniel Aleman, 26, and an accomplice, Daniel Rodriguez, both of College Point, beat Price after he left the store. Price was able to crawl home 10 blocks away and call police.
…[T]he NYPD says he suffered collapsed lungs, all his ribs broken and he underwent surgery on his spleen and had a metal plate placed in his jaw.
Fun drinking game: take a shot of something fruity every time this article uses the phrase “openly gay”.
A beauty pageant that requires plastic surgery.
From Deutsche Welle:
[G]oing under the knife was a requirement for the 50 contestants of Miss Plastic Hungary 2009.
…The competition was the first beauty show requiring substantial plastic surgery in order to qualify.
…The cosmetic surgeons of the top three contestants also received prizes for their work.“I think this competition was long overdue,” photographer and jury member Marton Sizpal told the Associated Press.
“It is time for Hungarian women to care more about their appearance,” he said.
In-f’in-credible. I really don’t know how to respond to news like this. Your response?
Republicans defend Sen. Jim DeMint by saying he’s like Jews who “take care of the pennies.”
From Gawker:
Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer wrote the Orangeburg Times and Democrat to defend DeMint in a newspaper editorial Sunday that said he was not funneling enough funds to local projects.
“There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy.”
Wow, Jim, you’ve got some great friends. And the votes of antisemites everywhere. Well, at least the ones in South Carolina. Edwin Merwin, huh? For a guy with “win” twice in his name, he’s awful full of fail.
Roger Ebert is so goddamn awesome.
I am naive enough to think that universal care is obviously good.
…The fallacy of the free enterprise argument is that it assumes corporations are motivated to bring about the public good. Corporations are motivated to maximize profits for shareholders.
I highly recommend you read the whole post. Via Kate Harding.
Thanks to all the hot tippers out there who brought this item to my attention. Anyone who can read and does so regularly must now know of the idiocy of Mr. Keith Bardwell of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana.
Just so’s we all know what we’re dealing with here:
Bardwell, a Republican, has served as justice of peace for 34 years. He said he has run without opposition each time, but had decided earlier not to run again. His current term expires Dec. 31, 2014.
That’s the caliber of the voters in Tangipahoe Parish. Additionally, a local newspaper’s poll shows that 30% of its readers don’t think he should resign. Seems like Blackwell isn’t so unusual for his community.
Blackwell has been media-shy, but he did give an interview to a local newspaper, the Hammond Daily Star. He said:
“I’m not a racist. I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”
Another charming bit further clarifying the “I’m not a racist” statement:
Bardwell said from his experience, “99 percent of the time” the interracial couple consists of a black man and white woman.
“I find that rather confusing,” he said.
He also told a local TV station:
“I don’t regret what I did and if it ever came up again, I’d have to do the same thing. I don’t feel right by putting some innocent person that has nothing to do with the marriage in that position, and that’s my only reason.”
Other bloggers have already whipped out nuanced responses to this farce, so I will just leave you with a quote from one of my personal heroes, Bill Quigley, of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Justice.
“Perhaps he’s worried the kids will grow up and be president.”
My friend Keinst who studied in Beijing has created a video project called “Ethnicity and Identity” which you can find in four parts on his youtube channel.
He writes:
I interviewed seven ethnically Chinese people who were born and raised in different countries and I asked them how they identified themselves.
As the world becomes smaller and more interconnected, old ways of thinking become less and less suitable. New ways of understanding things must be introduced to adapt to new phenomenons; this documentary attempts to do just that. For most people, ethnicity and identity are seen as one thing. However, I theorize that in the future these two concepts will grow further apart and at the same time become vague. This piece serves as a window into the future as well as into my own personal thoughts.
Check out the first video in the series below, and find the rest here.
Totally not news: the Human Rights Campaign continues to center the experiences of white middle-to-upper class gays while claiming to exist for the good of all LGBT people. Their tagline is: Working for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights. But if that were the case, why are they so focused on the agenda of a certain class, race, and gender subset of the community?
New York LGBT activist and blogger Kenyon Farrow has an opinion about this.
One quote:
[A recent] study showed that black gay and lesbian couples had higher poverty rates than their black straight counterparts, and three times higher than white gay couples. White gay male couples with jobs and no children had higher incomes than all compared groups – even heterosexual couples.
Apparently, I was part of a protest earlier this year against the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Dance Program, for poor treatment of their students of color.
The protest and the anonymous group who staged it like a guerilla art installation are called THIS. I was posting as idyllicmollusk at the time.
I don’t know what words they chose or why, but it is very powerful to hear that they chose a bit of my writing in their fight. Read through their blog. THIS created some waves. It sounds like they are pretty powerful.
A photo from a THIS guerilla installation in February.
Thank Jesus that the Obama Administration has taken away Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s authorization to enforce federal immigration laws. This means he will be curtailed in his ability to terrorize Latino communities. Naturally, he is enraged.
Here are some interesting tidbits from Alexander Provan’s recent piece on America’s Toughest Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. I recommend reading the whole thing.
Since 2007, Arpaio’s deputies have arrested 33,000 illegal aliens (only 300 of whom were picked up on “crime suppression sweeps”), but they’ve failed to catch any drug kingpins, break up any smuggling rings, or stanch the Mexican drug gang violence spilling over the border. (In fact, the sheriff’s immigration crackdown has coincided with a surge in violent crime and the accumulation of over 40,000 outstanding felony warrants.)
…I ask him why he’s arrested so many immigrants who’ve come to the country to take on menial jobs, but hasn’t caught any major smugglers…[T]hese are not drug dealers; they’re gardeners and dishwashers and men paid six dollars an hour to stand in the sun wearing sandwich boards.
“We’re going after those that have violated laws—they are illegal,” he insists.
…“All these people that come over, they could come with disease. There’s no control, no health checks or anything. They check fruits and vegetables, how come they don’t check people? No one talks about that! They’re all dirty. I sent out 200 inmates into the desert, they picked up 18 tons of garbage that they bring in—the baby diapers and all that. Where’s everybody who wants to preserve the desert?”
With all of this, you would think he was a dyed-in-the-wool anti-immigrant vigilante who burst out of the womb ready to profile some brown people. The thing about Alexander’s article that surprised me the most is that he has only been this rabid about “illegals” for the last four years. Arpaio is 77 years old. What changed after over seven decades of not hating immigrants?
[In 2005} a 24-year-old Army reservist named Patrick Haab pulled a gun on seven suspected illegal immigrants at a rest stop in the desert, forcing them to lie face-down on the ground until the sheriff’s men arrived. “You don’t go around pulling guns on people,” Arpaio said after arresting him. “Being illegal is not a serious crime. You can’t go to jail for being an illegal alien.”
Nativists did not take kindly to this position, and in a matter of days they had thrust Haab into the national spotlight. He played the hero on conservative talk shows, where he denounced Arpaio for letting the country turn into “Americo.” All charges against him were soon dropped, and a chastened Arpaio embarked on a campaign to remake his image. Within the year, he emerged as an anti-immigration crusader.
h/t cp
Last night, I rode my bike home from an event a couple miles from my house.
It was nearly 2 am and I had some concerns about drunk drivers. I turned down a driveway passage that leads between some public housing complexes near my house to avoid the cars racing up and down the major roads.
As I was riding through the central courtyard, I noticed a group of rather large men, dressed all in black, standing together at one end.
As I passed them, they took note of my presence and started shouting at me. They yelled out “HEY!” several times and demanded that I stop and talk with them.
It took me zero seconds to decide that would be a piss poor idea and to peddle all the faster. Usually ignoring such attention from men and leaving the area quickly is enough.
Not this time. I realized one of the men was literally chasing me. I was overwhelmed with fear. I didn’t even want to imagine what a cluster of five men hanging out in a dark corner at 2 am and shouting at women would want with me. My whole body went cold and I peddled as fast as I could, aiming for the bright lights of the nearest busy street.
I heard one of the men shout “Police!” and thought maybe a police officer was coming to the rescue.
Oh how wrong I was.
Because these men were the police.
That realization did not make me feel any better. I quickly assessed my options and decided to stop before any guns were drawn. Though I experience white skin privilege, the police in my neighborhood are so accustomed to abusing the marginalized communities here that I believed white privilege wouldn’t overcome their “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality.
The five police officers approached and surrounded me. Up close I could see that their dark clothing was black or navy uniforms with policey-decorations on them. They were all white, which I thought was odd for this majority-POC neighborhood. They demanded to know what I was doing in “the projects”. I responded that I was riding my bike home, and that the complexes were between my starting point and destination. They told me that this is a “high crime area” and that I “shouldn’t be around here”. I informed them that that was unreasonable because I live “around here”. That sounding deeply implausible, the leader demanded my ID and accused me of fleeing the police. He and three officers went a few paces away and huddled, speaking in low tones, for the next 15 minutes. One officer was left to monitor me.
I was thoroughly frightened and confused. I had only planned on a quick 10-minute bikeride from hanging out with friends to my home. Being shouted at, chased, and surrounded by a group of five big-bodied men… it hadn’t really occurred to me as a possibility. I expressed my confusion at this turn of the events and questioned my detention. They told me to wait.
Eventually, the leader of the group stalked up to me and in a raised, aggressive voice informed me that I was charged with disorderly conduct and riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. He informed me that I had known all along they were police, that I had shouted insults at them, and that I had deliberately tried to flee them.
This was, of course, news to me. I explained that when I pass noisy groups of men who shout at me in dark passages in the wee hours, it is simply a matter of survival that I get out of the situation, and that any woman in my place would do the same. He repeated that I had known they were police and had intentionally committed this crime.
He handed me the tickets and I got out of there fast. I have never felt so unsafe in my own neighborhood. I have never been harassed in this manner in my neighborhood before. I feel thankful that I came out of the situation with my life. That may be my white privilege. Around here, as around the country, police have a reputation for murdering black people. They murdered one man earlier this summer for the crime of being on his porch and telling a disguised under-cover cop to stop loitering on his property. He was killed in his own front doorway.
Some other reflections:
1. All this shouting and chasing and harassing was in the courtyard of a large housing complex full of families. I am talking hundreds of people. How safe can they feel when police officers are loitering outside of their homes screaming at the top of their lungs at every passer-by? Especially when this community, being low income and of color and partly immigrant, is already subject to excessive amounts of police harassment?
2. My own white privilege was revealed to me as I came to realize that this is what my neighbors experience every day, and that I usually escape it. It’s possible that the same darkness that prevented me from seeing the police uniforms prevented them from seeing my skin tone. They may have planned on harassing a public housing resident of color, and I just blundered into the situation by assuming that I can go wherever I want without police harassment. The fact that I never realized how police interactions interlace the daily lives of my neighbors is a wake up call for me.
3. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THOSE OFFICERS? How dare they harass a woman who is traveling alone at night in an isolated location away from any busy roads (where there would be witnesses and the potential to call for help)? Are they out of their minds? How can they be so blind to their male privilege and the legitimacy privilege of possessing state power? Could they really not see why the situation they chose to create was a terrifying nightmare-scenario for their victim? How in the world is public safety achieved by men shouting at and chasing women in the night? I have never felt so unsafe in my neighborhood as I do now. My neighbors haven’t ever done anything to make me feel unsafe, and so until now I had no fears. The behavior of these men was so egregious that I believe it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find similar instances perpetrated by the supposedly dangerous inhabitants of the public housing buildings.
4. Essentially, my crime here is that I was biking while female. I acted as any rational women would react in this situation. For my natural behaviors of simply trying to survive on the street, I actually have to be a defendant in court.
5. I want to state clearly that this is an intersection of institutional and state classism and racism, and that I will not be accepting comments to the effect of “Oh you’re so naive to live near public housing and/or to think good on your neighbors.” Those comments would be classist and racist and that’s not what this post is here to talk about. Why would I be the “naive white girl” to live near these apartments, but the residents are “hardened black criminals” simply for residing inside the same apartments I live next to? The location of your home does not define you as a criminal or not, nor does your skin color nor your poverty. I guess I should say “should not” instead of “does not”. We all know that people of color, public housing residents, immigrants, and poor people are criminalized simply for existing as such.
Puke.
Share your stories of police harassment if you like. NO RACISM & NO POOR-BASHING.
The Times-Picayune just informed me that “St. Bernard Parish will go forward with a Nov. 14 special election that includes an option for voters to permanently ban large apartment complexes…”
By “large apartment complexes” they mean buildings with 6 units or more. 6.
6.
If, by some twist of fate, you don’t already know about the housing discrimination hullabaloo down in St. Bernard Parish, avail yourself of knowledge here: Keeping Blacks Out of St. Bernard.
There are those in that parish who would rather shoot themselves in the foot than capitulate to “those people”. Just read the comments at that post.
Who puts a ban on housing?
I’ve divided today’s issue into sections. Oh boy!
Overseas
The Czech people are celebrating the collapse of American plans to put (more) American military equipment in their country! Go Czechs!
Idiot far-right German political party NPD sent offensive letters to “parliamentary candidates of immigrant heritage, telling them to go home.” It’s part of their cynical plan to stir up the not-properly-riled dormant xenophobic neo-nazi element in German society to vote for NPD in future elections.
Good news for the gheyz!
Not only does Nevada’s same-sex Domestic Partnership Registry Act take effect today, but the ban on same-sex marriage in Texas was declared unconstitutional!
So Topical!
Ed Kilgore wrote about David Brooks and anti-anti-racism. Did you read what he calls Brooks’ “unintentionally hilarious column”?
American Girl debuts “Gwen”, their new homeless doll! How topical! Here’s a snippet of her story:
Gwen and her mother Janine fell on hard times when her father lost his job; they later lost the house as they were unable to keep up payments. Soon after, Gwen’s father left them and they became homeless the fall before the start of the book’s events.
LOL your post-racial America!
(got that title from Shakesville btw)
US attorney Jim Greenlee in Mississipi targeted convenience store owners based only on the evidence that their names sound Muslim. Not like kinda on the DL, but as a stated initiative. The Convenience Store Initiative, to be precise.
Of the more than 100 people listed as being investigated by federal authorities, nearly every name appears to be Islamic. FBI officials would not comment.
FAIL. Good thing my pals at Mississippi Immigrants Rights Association are ON IT.
ANNnnnd to cap it all off with the worst thing ever: a white woman claiming to be an immigration officer stabbed an immigrant woman and stole her 4-day-old baby. This 
happened yesterday in Tennessee to mother Maria Gurrolla. Her missing baby’s name is Yair Anthony Carrillo. Investigators said:
“The child was taken by a white female who was posing as an immigration worker. She had come to the residence and demanded the mother give her the baby. When the mother refused to comply she stabbed the mother approximately 8 times.”
I was thinking about the St. Bernard Parish Housing Discrimination Saga while at work today. Or should I say, while I was bathing in cash from the huge payments I’ve been getting from Provident to write this. ;) And I was mulling over how several commenters at the above thread expressed anger at St. Bernard Parish being labeled racist, or at the label of racist being applied to themselves individually.
To wit, Amy wrote: “I am not NOT talking about race or what not. I am talking about Low-Income housing that people are on welfare and expect to get everything for free.”
Amusingly, lsder said: “In My Honest Opinion, The only racist people are the people screaming it.”
Yet in a later comment wrote: “answer two questions for me, who sold the black people into slavery(not who purchased slaves) who freed the slaves? “
And then we have the immediately-banned Kay:
I am so sick of the race card always being played. What is funny it is the blacks who are always using it. The Blacks are their worse enemy. Look at the stats, who does the killings….blacks, who screams about race……blacks. Turn on the TV an the first thing you hear is about the murder or murders of someone……who is the suspect……..a black person.
While still arguing for an outcome in this housing battle that would have racially disparate effects and undeniable racial implications, these particular commenters claim that they are not racist and have some other motive in mind that is 100% divorced from race. Which in a situation where a white majority is making it nearly impossible for a black minority to live amongst them, is a hard argument to make.
Por ejemplo Jude (the guy who figured out I make the BIG BUCKS being a social justice blogger) escribe:
if you had any common decency you would be demanding that this developer place these apartments in a place where there is a hospital, services, and a tax base that could provide needed services. This blog isn’t about what’s best, or the right thing to do, it’s about jumping into a fight that you know little to nothing about and sadly people are going to pay for it with their lives. It’s too bad you don’t get it, but then you are probably being paid not to
Yet while his concern that low income blacks have the best possible housing built for them is one that I share, somehow I can’t bring myself to believe that the resistance to public housing in SBP is due to the fact that whites are concerned it won’t be good enough for blacks.
Perhaps my skepticism (besides it being a natural Czech trait) is due in part to comments like George Crossman’s: “Wow, all these wasted words and time on this, the bottom line is when the blacks moved to village square [demolished public housing] it ruined st bernard parish there is statistical proof of it.”
So I sez to myself, what kind of statement could a white St. Bernard Parish resident make that would make me not doubt their sincerity when they say they are not racist, or even, as some commenters have said, only have the best interest of blacks at heart?
Here’s what that would look like to me:
1. I assembled a community group who met with concerned blacks about what kind of housing would best suit the poor black community’s needs.
2. I arranged a meeting between the Parish Council and black leaders in St. Bernard.
3. I lobbied the Parish Council to ask Provident to build several smaller public housing units scattered throughout the Parish instead of simply one giant building.
4. I met with local housing advocates and asked for their opinions on affordable housing and preventing housing discrimination in St. Bernard.
5. I read up on the Fair Housing Act and the history of racial discrimination in housing in the US.
6. I organized some people to survey low income residents in St. Bernard and established a task force to implement their suggestions.
7. I took an anti-oppression class.
8. I located the former residents of the Village Square and wrote to the newspaper about their current situation and solutions to improve it.
9. I looked at recent cases where cities, parishes or counties experienced similar housing problems and learned x, y and z from their examples.
10. I learned to question common stereotypes about poor people, recipients of government aid, and blacks.
11. I volunteered my time to work in low-income communities on neighborhood beautification projects.
12. I talk with my neighbors about the harm racial discrimination brings to St. Bernard Parish.
13. I accepted that St. Bernard Parish has a terrible history of racial discrimination and decided to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, starting with myself.
14. I learned what terms are considered offensive by minorities in my community and have stopped using them.
But I have not heard anything like this. Instead, I have heard decades-old arguments that whites use when forcing shitty situations onto blacks and trying to wash their hands of the racist label.
So if anyone is wondering what it would take for me to believe white St. Bernard residents sincerely have the best interests of the black residents and former residents of SBP at heart, something like the above would convince me.
Anyone have any other positive anti-racist suggestions for steps forward in SBP?
This thread will be strongly moderated for racist language, personal insults, and threats. Sadly, after my previous St. Bernard post, this has now become a problem.
“Every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them.”
-Thomas Douglas
UPDATE: Anti-racism =/= racism against whites. Do we really have to play that game? Try reading Color Blinded by Whiteness.
“The dispossessed of this nation—the poor, both white and Negro-live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against the injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty.
…There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
“Nonviolence and Social Change”
Trumpet of Conscience (1967)
Looks like some people don’t like what I have to say about housing discrimination:
check this out – someone from FAR AWAY made it a point to support the apts we are fighting. please go to this blog and post your comments. if we make enough noise, he will shut down his blog for awhile. thx! ~Arabi~http://theczech.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/keeping-blacks-out-of-st-bernard/
It’s a little bit scary, but I guess it means I’m on the right track! And my site hits are waaay up.
PS. I am not shutting my blog down.
UPDATE 9/29/09: My friend robert, from the first St. Bernard thread, has kindly advertised this here “liberal activist from Brooklyn” blog at Tigerdroppings.com. Someone who has been successfully absorbing his daily Limbaugh Lessons responds eloquently.
From Manitoba, Canada:
“We had asked for funding so we can get organized and to ensure medicines, hand sanitizers and other preventative kits were in place but, instead, we are shocked to receive the body bags,” Chief Jerry Knott of Wasagamack First Nation said. “Is the shipment of the body bags part of Canada’s preparedness plan for all Canadians? Is the body bags a statement from Canada…?”
“It really makes me wonder if health officials know something we don’t,” said Grand Chief David Harper.
“Don’t send us body bags. Help us organize; send us medicine.”
Chief David McDougall of St. Theresa Point First Nation said, “We can acknowledge we also received body bags in our community. To me, this is an ominous sign that the government is predicting a grim outcome.”
Canada’s Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who is herself an indigenous Canadian, has ordered an inquiry into the little snafu.
Here is the St. Theresa Point First Nation press release on this topic.
I would like to echo Chief Knott’s question: Is the shipment of the body bags part of Canada’s preparedness plan for all Canadians? Or just the First Nations people? And, of course, why would that be?
Looks like St. Bernard Parish isn’t alone in the blatantly racist housing practices department.
Westchester Adds Housing to Desegregation Pact
Huh, Westchester is one of the wealthiest suburbs in America. Interesting.
Hmmm, I love the crisp smell of racism in the morning.
Best comment at the NYT: “Why should a community have to import poverty, of whatever color? If people, with or without color, have the money to buy a home there, fine, but to say that a group of affluent people should be “punished” for being Affluent While White by having poor and probably culturally incompatible people dumped on them is absurd.”
Oh, the burdens one must bear, when one must live in proximity to the poor! Oh, it is so terrible to be forced to look at the distasteful dwellings and personages of the dusky-complexioned! Quelle peine!
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