Black Lives Matter Khutba Ideas

BLM Khutba Ideas

Finally: The Integral role of Black Americans in Islamic revival
In the post-colonial era, the Muslim world became characterized by immense corruption, ritualism, and poverty. Gone was the era of the Islamic golden age in places such as Islamic Spain in which Muslims commanded universal respect and admiration. In light of this, numerous Muslim intellectuals from Abul ala Maududi, Ali Shariati, Abul ala Maududi, and many others have devoted themselves to how the Islamic world could achieve a revival. What role to Black Americans played in this?

Michigan Legislature Activities for Autumn 2016

LEGISLATION OF NOTE, SEPTEMBER 2016

Scroll down for "Uniformed Lives Matter" bill and its possible linking with a bill expanding civil rights protections for LGBT people.


* Lawmakers return after long summer break, introduce nearly 100 bills
Kathleen Gray, Detroit Free Press
11 September 2016
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/11/lawmakers-return-after-long-summer-break-introduce-nearly-100-bills/90145266

A bill that would eliminate the requirement that cities and villages pay for a portion of road repairs on state highways passed nearly unanimously in the Legislature earlier this year. But Snyder vetoed it because he said he felt it would create a patchwork of funding mechanisms for road repairs in the state. State Rep. Pete Pettalia, R-Presque Isle, also reintroduced a bill vetoed by Snyder that would limit the use of aftermarket auto parts that aren't made by the original car maker.

For more on Michigan's anti-trafficking legislation, see Section 750.462a of the Michigan Penal Code, Act 328 of 1931.

HB 5808: Allow testimony of expert witnesses regarding behavioral patterns of human trafficking. Sponsor: Rep. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township.

HB 5838-5839: Prohibit, and provide penalties for, people or businesses knowingly selling travel services for the purpose of human trafficking. Sponsors: Reps. Tom Barrett, R-Potterville; Jason Sheppard, R-Temperance.

HB 5815: Provide re-entry services and housing for individuals released from prison as a result of their conviction or sentence being overturned. Sponsor: Rep. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit.

HB 5820 and SB 1060: Expand the suspicion-based drug testing program for cash assistance recipients from a three-county pilot to statewide and require annual reports on Nov. 30 of each year. Sponsors: Rep. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Township; and Sen. Dale Zorn, R-Ida.

HB 5829: Prohibit exclusivity clause in public sector labor union contracts. Sponsor: Rep. Gary Glenn, R-Midland.

HB 5856: Eliminate a Brownfield Development Authority’s ability to capture future special millages. Sponsor: Rep. Lee Chatfield, R-Levering.

SB 1035: Expand the definition of ethnic intimidation to include gender identification and sexual orientation. Sponsor: Sen. Steven Bieda, D-Warren.

SB 1039-1040: Prohibit rules that are more stringent than the current requirements to claim exemption from immunizations, and prohibit excluding students from school as a disease control measure. Sponsor: Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton.

SB 1046: Change the requirements for transportation of students, adding that school districts shall transport or pay for transportation for a student from the public school within the district to a nonpublic school that the student attends. Sponsor: Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton.

SB 1066: Prohibit local units of government from raising the minimum age to purchase or use tobacco products. Sponsor: Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge.


* Michigan Legislature's fall agenda: energy laws, driverless cars, marijuana bills
David Eggert, Associated Press (Crain's Detroit Business)
05 September 2016
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20160905/NEWS01/160909921/michigan-legislatures-fall-agenda-energy-laws-driverless-cars
The Republican-led Michigan Legislature returns for voting this week after a three-month summer break, with plans for an abbreviated calendar before the crucial November election determines which party controls the House. Both chambers will have three weeks in session before the election, or nine days. The House schedule is front-loaded to September, while the Senate — whose members are not up for election for another two years — will be in session off and on into October.

Top priorities for GOP legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder continue to be an update of energy laws and changes in parole and probation policies. Lawmakers have been unable to resolve issues that ultimately affect consumers' bills — competition in the electricity market, how much power should come from wind and other renewable sources, and whether to require energy-efficiency markers. Senators will resume session Tuesday. Majority Republicans plan to revisit the energy legislation and marijuana bills in a private caucus meeting. House-passed measures would tax and regulate medical marijuana.

It has been nearly four months since a special legislative committee concluded investigative hearings into the lead contamination that began when the financially strapped city's water source was switched under state management. The Legislature has allocated $240 million. But policy recommendations, including potential revisions to the emergency manager law, have yet to be released — sparking questions from Democrats on the GOP-controlled panel. Republicans now could wait to make recommendations, originally due in May, until after the election. Democrats fighting to win the House majority for the first time since 2010 have tried to tie GOP lawmakers to the crisis by criticizing them for not calling Snyder to testify and allowing public money to be spent on lawyers helping him with Flint-related legal matters.


* CPR training could become school requirement in Michigan
Tampa Bay Times
11 September 2016
http://www.tbo.com/cpr-training-could-become-school-requirement-in-michigan-ap_election4795008e347f46649cadac1b804b44cc
The legislation easily cleared the Senate in the spring and is pending in the House, which supporters hope will vote this month before members break again to focus on the November election. The bill would require that schools provide instruction in CPR and the use of defibrillators at least one time between grades 7 and 12. The requirement would begin in the 2017-18 school year. Rep. Tom Hooker, a Byron Center Republican, sponsored the legislation in the House.


* Michigan legislation seeks to allow pooches on restaurant patios
Brittany Gray, WWMT
10 September 2016
http://wwmt.com/news/local/michigan-legislation-seeks-to-allow-pooches-on-restaurant-patios
Michigan State law generally prohibits animals at restaurants, but Senate Bill 727 would allow dogs on outdoor patios. Michigan State law generally prohibits animals at restaurants, but Senate Bill 727 would allow dogs on outdoor patios. The bill introduced by Sen. Margaret O'Brien, R-Portage passed the Republican-led Michigan Senate this week and heads to the Michigan House, but some who oppose the legislation are saying they don't want to see dog hair or slobber while they're eating. It would allowed leashed dogs on a restaurant's outdoor patio, but those patios would have to be free of dog hair and regularly disinfected. The bill also allows communities to ban dogs, if the community wasn't in favor of the idea. The bill would not affect any existing laws covering service dogs.

UNIFORMED LIVES MATTER BILLS

Proposed bills would classify attacks on Law Enforcement Officials as hate crimes.

* Michigan senator to introduce 'Uniformed Lives Matter' bill
Emily Lawler, MLive
09 July 2016
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/michigan_senator_to_introduce.html
Sen. Mike Kowall, R-White Lake promised to introduce legislation in Michigan that would treat attacks on law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical services personnel as hate crimes under state law. Michigan law already does prohibit the killing of a police officer, but it is not currently classified as a hate crime.

Michigan law defines a hate crime as being motivated by a bias against a race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. Federal law also includes crimes motivated by a bias against perceived religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability in its definition of hate crimes. According to a report from the Michigan State Police there were 495 hate crimes in Michigan in 2015.


* Legislation eyed to make attacks on cops hate crimes
Candice Williams, The Detroit News
08 July 2016
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/08/michigan-legislation-cops-hate-crimes/86873028

Michigan Senate Majority Leader and former public safety director for White Lake Township Mike Kowall said he would introduce the “Uniformed Lives Matter” legislation when the Senate returns to session in September after summer break. The legislation would cover law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical services personnel.


* Jones backs classifying LGBT bias as hate crime
Todd Heywood, City Pulse
July 2016
http://lansingcitypulse.com/print-article-13427-permanent.html

State Sen Rick Jones, a Grand Ledge Republican and former sheriff, will announce that he is cosponsoring a bill to amend the measure to include LGBT people. His support breathes new life into the legislation after decades of disappointment for proponents. His backing guarantees a hearing before the Judiciary Committee. This will be the first time the Legislature’s upper chamber has held hearings on hate crimes legislation, and the first time since 2008 either chamber has done so. Last week, Jones signed onto SB1035 to amend the state hate crimes law to include gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes. Jones and Warren Democrat Steve Bieda will take the lead shepherding the legislation through the Senate. Ingham County Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr. and Republican Tory Rocca from Sterling Heights have also signed onto the bill as sponsors.

State statistics show antigay crimes have been an ongoing issue in Michigan. In 2014, the Michigan State Police listed 60 antigay bias crimes. That was out of 532 victims and 441 incidents. In 2015, the number of victims and incidents had dropped to 399 incidents and 495 victims. The MSP reports that 12 percent in 2015 were motivated by antigay bias, or 61 cases. The majority of bias crimes were perpetrated based on the victim’s race. Michigan's Hate Crime law doesn't include crimes against a particularly vulnerable group, transgender people, which the state police do not track. Equality Michigan, a statewide gay rights organization, reported in the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects 2015 annual report on hate crimes that the state had tracked three anti-trans murders.

State Sen. Mike Kowall of White Lake said last week, after news of the shooting of white police officers in Dallas, that he would introduce legislation he is calling “Uniformed Lives Matter.” That proposal would make a crime to target first responders for violent crime, as apparently happened when a gunman opened fired on Dallas Police last week during a Black Lives Matter march. Kowall opposes amending existing hate crimes laws to include the LGBT community. Ironically, however, MSP reports on bias incidents show that in 2014, five police officers were victims of bias crimes, whereas 60 members of the LGB community were victims of such crimes. In 2015, eight police officers were victims of bias crimes, while 61 members of the LGB community were victims.

Nathan Triplett, political director for Equality Michigan, said Jones’ move is “very positive.”

Racial Constructs and Police Relations: A Reader

Whilst race is a social construct, it is a very real one. To pretend that it does not exist is to wilfully ignore the lived realities of People of Colour. Be mindfully loving.

With regard to calls for unity from those who visibly ally themselves with the police, the following needs to b known. Please read.

* "We don’t need Lincoln-inspired racial ‘unity.’ We need whites to stop being racist."
Stacey Patton, Washington Post
15 July 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/15/we-dont-need-lincoln-inspired-racial-unity-we-need-whites-to-stop-being-racist
"Clinton’s call for everyone to “do the work” to unite against hatred overlooks the fundamental fact that it’s whites — and only whites — who must work to fix the racist structures in our society. To quote another historical figure, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: 'The thing wrong with America is white racism. … It’s time for America to have an intensified study on what’s wrong with white folks.' Clinton could have spoken about racial justice. Talk of unity, reconciliation and restoring trust is a diversion from the raw, ugly, excruciatingly painful work of addressing the systemic racism that is tearing our nation apart. In their rush to avoid the real work in favor of a kumbaya fantasy comfort zone, they refuse to confront history and the truth about present moment."

* "MLK Would Never Shut Down a Freeway, and 6 Other Myths About the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter"
Janne Theoharis, Black Lives Matter"
15 July 2916
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/07/mlk-would-never-shut-down-a-freeway-and-6-other-myths-about-the-civil-rights-movement-and-black-lives-matter
"Such historical revisionism is both dangerous and comfortable—dangerous because it grossly distorts how the civil rights movement actually proceeded, and comfortable because it allows many Americans to keep today’s movement at arm’s length. Key to the work of many civil rights organizations, from SCLC to the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was mass civil disobedience because they understood that injustice would not be changed without disrupting civic and commercial life. The civil rights movement made most Americans uncomfortable. The March on Washington was policed like a military battle; in Operation Steep Hill, the Pentagon put 19,000 troops on standby. Five thousand local and suburban police, National Guard troops and Army rangers were given riot-control training and were on duty that day.

* "Study Supports Suspicion That Police Are More Likely to Use Force on Blacks"
Timothy Williams, New York Times
07 July 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/study-supports-suspicion-that-police-use-of-force-is-more-likely-for-blacks.html
"The report found that although officers employ force in less than 2 percent of all police-civilian interactions, the use of police force is disproportionately high for African-Americans — more than three times greater than for whites."

* "Is There A 'War On Police'? The Statistics Say No"
Martin Kaste, NPR
15 September 2015
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/17/441196546/is-there-a-war-on-police-the-statistics-say-no
"Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina, has been collecting and analyzing these data going back decades. He says 2014 looked bad in comparison with 2013 mainly because 2013 was so good. '2013 was the safest year for police officers, ever,' he says. 'The safest year in recorded history.' In fact, in the larger scheme of things, 2014 looks pretty normal. The number of murders of police was about the same as 2012, and actually a lot lower than 2011. The long-term trend is even more encouraging: On average, only about half as many police are murdered every year now, as compared with the 1970s."

* "FBI Releases 2015 Preliminary Statistics for Law Enforcement Officers Killed in the Line of Duty"
FBI National Press Office
16 May 2016
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2015-preliminary-statistics-for-law-enforcement-officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty
"Preliminary statistics released today by the FBI show that 41 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2015. This is a decrease of almost 20 percent when compared with the 51 officers killed in 2014."

* "Black Lives Matter: Grand Rapids’ Official Statement on the 'Am I Next?' 4Unity Rally"
Black Lives Matter: Grand Rapids
14 July 2016
https://www.facebook.com/notes/black-lives-matter-grand-rapids/black-lives-matter-grand-rapids-official-statement-on-the-am-i-next-4unity-rally/626953390793765
"Before talks of unity, we must speak openly about how Black and Brown communities are viciously torn apart by systems and institutions of injustice and violence."

When Muslims Are Racist (I Will Call You on It)

If Asra Nomani hadn't done this previously, she sure has now - Nomani has come out as an anti-Black racist. This lengthy post is an examination of Nomani's recent Heat Street article, as well as some of her social media posts.

Heat Street is a social commentary website co-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Nomani's piece fits in very well with the overall tenor of Heat Street. Notice the way that Nomani impugns Black People as "violent" and "loud" before one has scrolled far enough to actually read her article. Both of those characterisations are racist tropes. There is more, though.

Heat Street Article Screenshot

Inside her piece, Nomani expands on her racism:

We stopped when I spotted the line of police. “We’ll be safe next to the police,” I told my friend. It is a difficult truth to acknowledge: After watching the streets of America burn from Ferguson, Missouri, to Baltimore, we feared violence from the protestors, not the police. Little could we know, we were — metaphorically, at least — in the sniper’s line of fire, with targets on the backs of police, six of them to be injured, five of them to be slain, hours later.

In Belo Garden Park, studying the crowd of demonstrators, I had told my friend: The tenor of the Black Lives Matter movement — with headline moments of storming stages, seizing microphones, sabotaging a gay pride event, expressing rage and even hate to police — had alienated even liberals, like myself, who care deeply about racial justice.

Later, Nomani continued in the same vein, saying, "We must face the wounds of social injustice with a nonviolent spirit of reconciliation and healing."

The above two paragraphs and separate sentence contain the following:
* sense of safety near the police
* accusations of protesters setting streets on fire in several cities
* association of self with police in victimhood
* conflation of Dallas sniper with Black Lives Matter (BLM)
* hyperbolic exaggerations of BLM activist actions at a Sanders rally
* hyperbolic exaggerations of BLM activist actions at Toronto Pride
* underhanded tone policing
* intentionally dishonest portrayals of BLM's attitudes towards the police
* highlighting the race of her friend
* respectability politics

In addition to these, Nomani chose to highlight the race of a police officer who took a photo of benevolent interactions between police officers and a protester in her Heat Street article. Nomani then went on to comment further in a shared video post on Facebook, where she continued with the inherently violent trope and the angry trope and implied that people would be concerned for her safety. In another Facebook post, Nomani claimed that President Obama shared her concern over "violent" Black protesters (oops, no he didn't). Finally, in a post on Twitter, Asra Nomani re-iterated the "violent" trope, engaged again in tone-policing, and claimed that Black Lives Matter is not concerned about racial justice - but she is. (Reminder: BLM is composed of - get this - Black People. Nomani, on the other hand, is not a Black Person.)

The image files for screenshots of the Facebook and Twitter posts will be included after the end of this post.

To update the list that I started above, I can add the following:
* focusing on the race of a "good cop"
* lack of safety around Black People
* Black People don't know what is good for them, but we do
* non-Black people do racial justice better than do Black People

All of these amount to the following racist tropes or attitudes:

1. Police, Safety, and Race
2. Black Protesters as "Violent"
3. Identifying with Police
4. Dallas Sniper
5. Sanders Rally
6. Toronto Pride
7. Tone Policing
8. BLM and the police
9. Tokenisation
10. Respectability Politics
11. Model Minorities
12. Paternalism
13. White Supremacy

By way of analysing and combatting each of these racist attitudes, I offer the following reader.

1. Police, Safety, and Race
* See also Soya Jung's 2014 article on Asian-American Privilege in Race Files.

* Accumulated Police Experiences
Rod K Brunison
University of Alabama

"A substantial body of research had investigated the social ecology of policing and the disproportionate effects on police procedures and wrongdoings on black citizens (Bass, 2001a; Meehan and Ponder, 2002; Phillips and Smith, 2000). These studies detail the diverse injuries to residents of distressed communities, including unparalleled experiences with being watched and detained (Browning et al, 1994; Fagan and Davies, 2000; Hurst et al, 2000; Jones-Brown 2000; Kennedy, 1997; Weitzer, 1999); irreverence (Mastrofski et al, 2002; Weitzer 1999); arrests (Smith and Visher, 1981); the use of unwarranted physical and deadly force (Jacobs and O'Brien, 1998; Smith and Holmes, 2003; Terrill et al, 2003; Terrill and Reisig, 2003; Weitzer, 1999; Worden, 1996); officer misconduct (Kane, 202); as well as slower response times and fewer police services (Anderson 1999; Klinger, 1997; Smith and Klein, 1984). In addition, it is particularly African-American young men who are  disproportionately burdened by these negative experiences (Brunson and Miller, 2006a, 2006b; Hurst et al, 2000)."

* Study Supports Suspicion That Police Are More Likely to Use Force on Blacks
Timothy Williams, New York Times
07 July 2016

"When force is used, a new study has found, the race of the person being stopped by officers is significant. The study of thousands of use-of-force episodes from police departments across the nation has concluded what many people have long thought, but which could not be proved because of a lack of data: African-Americans are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account.

"The report, to be released Friday by the Center for Policing Equity, a New York-based think tank, took three years to assemble and largely refutes explanations from some police officials that blacks are more likely to be subjected to police force because they are more frequently involved in criminal activity.

"The report found that although officers employ force in less than 2 percent of all police-civilian interactions, the use of police force is disproportionately high for African-Americans — more than three times greater than for whites."

Based on these readings, one can see very clearly that Black People's experiences with the police are disproportionately negative. Many Black People and Black organisations have informed that there is a broad sense of fear among Black People for the police. Nicole Hannah-Jones's March 2015 article in Politico, "A Letter From Black America: Yes, we fear the police. Here’s why." is one of a myriad examples of such explanations. See also Will Jawando's The Root article from 27 August 2015, "What Makes Black Men Run From the Police?." The link between that fear and police treatment of Black People is obvious.

2. Black Protesters as "Violent"
* This is related to the "riot" trope in which whites assume that Black protesters are throwing a violent riot. See my points #5 "Sanders Rally" and #6 "Toronto Pride" for more about Black Lives Matter's protest history. In addition, have a look at all of these "peaceful" white "rallies."
+ White People Rioting for No Reason
+ 11 Stunning Images Highlight the Double Standard of Reactions to Riots Like Baltimore

America actually has a long, rich history of white riots. See this Wikipedia entry for more information. But enough digression.

* If you sound 'black', Americans automatically think you're violent
Lizzie Dearden, Independent
8 October 2015

"When participants rated each character’s height, muscularity and size, the scores were statistically equivalent for the 'black neutral' character and the 'white criminal' character. Daniel Fessler, the study's co-author and director of the UCLA Centre for Behaviour, Evolution and Culture, said: 'In essence, the brain's representational system has a toggle switch, such that size can be used to represent either threat or status. 'However, apparently because stereotypes of black men as dangerous are deeply entrenched, it is very difficult for our participants to flip this switch when thinking about black men. For study participants evaluating black protagonists, dangerous equals big and big equals dangerous, period.'"

Using the information from this article, one can see that Asra Nomani's constant references to Black People's "violence" are part of a racist syntax that she employs in her writings.

3. Identifying with Police
* Whilst Desi Americans are generally among the Muslim American population that is subjected to heightened scrutiny, including surveillance, as well as discrimination and anti-Muslim violence, Desi Americans have also integrated well into American society. Michael Kugelman covers this in his Dawn article, written on 24 May 2012. What we saw from Nomani's experience with and expectation of the police, however, we more the kind of attitude that we whites generally exhibit ourselves. She expressed, "We'll be safe next to the police." See my point #1, "Police, Safety, and Race." Black People simply do not have the luxury of expecting safety from the police - a vastly different experience than we whites have. In addition, read Maisha Z. Johnson's "20 Examples That Prove White Privilege Protects White People From the Police," on Everyday Feminism, written 15 June 2015. Johnson went into some detail explaining her 20-item list, and it is well worth one's time to read her article.

4. Dallas Sniper
* The Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas was peaceful until the sniper opened fire; and there was a spirit of co-operation between protesters and the police. The Dallas sniper, Micah Xavier Johnson, was not part of BLM. He expressed frustration with BLM. Black Lives Matter distanced themselves from him. Furthermore, Johnson's own life experiences as a military vet living with mental illnesses may well have contributed to his disintegration and self-destructive behaviours (which included sexual harassment).

5. Sanders Rally
* It should firstly be noted here that when Black Lives Matter disrupted Bernie Sanders in Seattle, no-one got hurt. This needs to be re-emphasised, because listening to some people whine and carry on, you would think that there had been bloodshed.

No-one got hurt.

* To learn more about the import of BLM's action at the Seattle event last year, it is a good idea to listen to the very person who was most affected by the disruption - Bernie Sanders himself. He said, "We owe a debt of gratitude to the Black Lives Matter movement."

* The Matter of Black Lives
Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker
14 March 2016
(long biography of the movement - no mention of "violence")

* A Year of Black Lives Matter
Clare Foran, The Atlantic
31 December 2015

Over the summer, activists began publicly, and unapologetically, disrupting presidential candidates at events and campaign rallies. The strategy got results. Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley rushed to release detailed criminal-justice platforms after high-profile clashes with Black Lives Matter activists. In August, Hillary Clinton convened a meeting with activists who showed up at a New Hampshire campaign event intending to disrupt it. ... Student protest also reached new heights on college campuses around the country. High-profile protests at the University of Missouri and Yale University over discrimination and racial insensitivity led to resignations at both schools. ... Critics have characterized student protests as a plea for special treatment that infringes on free speech. Many activists view that as an attempt to dismiss, and shut down, what the movement is trying to achieve, and argue that the criticism operates from a premise that fails to acknowledge profound racial inequity.

6. Toronto Pride

* Again: No-one got hurt.

* Black Lives Matter Protest Proves Pride Needs More Empathy, Less Prejudice
Joshua Orstroff, Huffington Post Canada
04 July 2016

Twenty-five minutes is about the length of time we wait through commercials and trailers for a movie to start. Twenty-five minutes is how long it should have taken my six-year-old son and I to get to the Pride Parade from Parkdale rather than the hour-and-a-half that it actually took. Waiting twenty-five minutes is not suffering or being taken hostage. Claiming this during a protest by a community that has suffered greatly over the years, including being disproportionately carded and killed by police, is as insulting as it is ironic.

7. Tone Policing:
* See #18 on this copy of Peggy Mcintosh's "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."

* What We Can All Learn From Nicki Minaj Schooling Miley Cyrus on Tone Policing
Maisha Z. Johnson, Everyday Feminism
September 1, 2015
"Racist stereotypes like the Angry Black Woman aren't only applied to Black women who are 'excessively angry.' They’re applied all across the board to make sure Black women never speak up when we're in pain – even when our words and anger are justified."

Using this article as a guide, one can spot the following in Nomani's writings: #3. You're making your cause look bad, and #5. This is counterproductive. Nomani also used another item from this article, but I have categorised it elsewhere.

8. BLM and the Police
* This issue actually gets covered quite well throughput the rest of the post.

* Even so, read this.
A Tough Weekend for the Black Lives Matter Movement
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
10 August 2015

The Black Lives Matter movement is in no way to blame for the incident [of gunfire that erupted on the streets of Ferguson]... Some members of the public will wrongheadedly conflate Black Lives Matter activists and the criminals who used the cover of Sunday’s anniversary and the accompanying protests to fire guns, beat up and rob a St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper reporter, and smash the window of a small business that serves Ferguson. There is no evidence that those criminals were participants in the Black Lives Matter movement. The vast majority of its members have been nonviolent all year, conducting themselves with uncommon bravery and restraint in difficult circumstances.

For a better understanding of the unrest that took place in  Baltimore, the following is a highly recommended read.

* The Baltimore Riot Didn't Have to Happen
David A Graham, The Atlantic
30 April 2015

There's a familiar narrative around this outbreak of violence that makes it fit into our experience of past riots—Ferguson to Los Angeles to Detroit to Hough. The arc is scripted: Citizens get angry, tensions build and build until they boil over, violence erupts, and then people go home and the city begins the process of cleaning up. But after two relatively quiet and calm nights in Baltimore, that arc doesn't seem to apply. Instead, there seems to have been a consistent level of peaceful anger for two weeks, punctuated only by two moments of destruction. In that light, Monday's riots aren't the natural climax of increasing anger but instead an entirely avoidable tragedy that might have been forestalled had city officials made different decisions.

It seems there weren't even all that many students interested in a rowdy march—maybe 75 to 100. But when they got to the mall, they were met by a phalanx of police in riot gear, which increased tensions. (It's also a departure from the general tactics of Baltimore Police over the last two weeks—officers have typically tried to give protestors a wide berth to demonstrate.) The mall is also a transportation hub for students, and many students of all ages who were not involved in the "purge" were therefore present in the same place and trying to get home. But police were forcing riders to get off buses and preventing them from getting on other buses and trains. The result was a large group of young people stranded together with no way to leave, facing off against a line of police, likely scared and unsure of what to expect. Unsurprisingly, the situation boiled over. Once police started backing off, some faction of the crowds took advantage of the anarchy and began setting fires and looting.

9. Tokenisation

* Asra Nomani points out two people in her narrative as being Hispanic: her friend, and a cop. There was no reason to highlight their race, unless she was looking to score credit with other non-Black persons for having other People of Colour around her. We are sorry to inform you, Ms Nomani, that all of the brownies have run out, so your points don't count for anything.

10. Respectability Politics
* Don’t criticize Black Lives Matter for provoking violence. The civil rights movement did, too.
Simone Sebastian, Washington Post
01 October 2015
In which Simone Sebastian quotes Martin Luther King, Jr twice:
+ "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
+ "[Direct action] so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored"

* Where Does The 'Pull Up Your Pants' School Of Black Politics Come From?
Leah Donella, NPR
22 October 2015
"You know what we're wading into here: respectability politics, the notion that problems in the black community spume from within, and that by adopting a certain lifestyle, black people can inoculate themselves from discrimination."

* Respectability politics won't save the lives of black Americans
Zach Stafford, The Guardian
12 October 2015

The reason why being ‘respectable’ doesn’t work is because no matter how respectable you may be acting, your performance isn’t undoing the very real systematic ways in which our world operates.

Wearing a tie doesn’t rectify the fact that black people are incarcerated at six times that rate of white people. You having the ‘right job’ doesn’t give a black person a job as the community faces an unemployment rate of twice that of white people. And saying #AllLivesMatters doesn’t take the bullet out of the literally countless black bodies shot dead by police officers.

Instead, believing that our lives only matter when we ‘act right’ only fuels the very dangerous ways in which our world operates. It protects the structural racism that no one ever wants to talk about or challenge. And it inevitably makes you believe that your life depends on a well enunciated “yes, sir.”

* The Definition, Danger and Disease of Respectability Politics, Explained
Damon Young, The Root
21 March 2016

The best one [recent example of respectability politics] I can cite is Bill Cosby’s infamous pound cake speech. It was given during an NAACP awards ceremony in 2004, and he spent much of his speech admonishing black people for everything from (lack of) parental skills to how giving a child a “black” name assured that he’d (or she’d) be in prison one day.

It shifts responsibility away from perpetrators (which in this context would be America) and places it on the victims (which in this context would be blacks in America). Instead of requiring the people and the institutions committing and propagating racist acts to change, it asks the people harmed by the racism to change in order to stop being harmed by the racism. Which is like getting shot and then getting blamed for standing in front of the bullet.

11. Model Minorities
* "Model minority" is defined here, but what I was thinking was that Asra Nomani was setting herself up as a "better-behaved" minority who has "more right" than do Black People on how to run a Black Rights campaign. In this case, the model minority is not being set up based on race, but rather based on behaviour. This is linked with "Paternalism" and "White Supremacy," which is not surprising given the nature of so-called race relations in the States.

12. Paternalism
* As the "better behaved" model minority, Ms Nomani seems to think herself divinely mandated with the right to tell Black People how to run their movement. Using the trope of inherent Black violence and the tool of respectability politics, Nomani asserts herself over Black People as their benevolent superior.

13. White Supremacy
* This is the sum total of all of the above, in combination with Nomani's wilful ignorance of things like police treatment of Black People by police, the nature and conduct of Black Lives Matter protests, even the series of events constituting the Dallas mass shooting. Nomani uses several forms of tone policing throughout her writings. All of this combined aims at the goal of silencing Black People in order to preserve Nomani's comfort. This says something deeply disturbing about how Asra Nomani qualifies her own comfort compared to actual Black Lives. - something which I addressed in another blog post.

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Nomani's Shared Video FB Post

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Nomani's Video Share FB Post

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Nomani's Tweet

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To Muslims: On Race, Protests, and Stealing the Mic

My Dear Fellow Non-Black Muslims:
We need to talk. Actually, we need to not talk. Black People are trying to say things these days. And we Muslims are talking right over our Black siblings: Black Muslim siblings as well as Black non-Muslim siblings.

Most specifically, I spotted a notional flag for a Muslim-dominated country at a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest that was taking place somewhere in the States.

NO.

This is not our platform. This is not our place. The Black Lives Matter movement is leading this; and the space belongs to Black People. When we insert our own interests into the conversation, however we do so, we are upstaging Black People. We are diverting the spotlight away from Black People. We are stealing the mic from them.

So stop it. When you attend a Black Lives Matter event, amplify Black Lives Matter - not you. A caveat: I understand that the Black community is diverse and intersectional, and that there are Black People in many countries around the world. **IF** a BLM organiser INVITES people to express diversities in various ways, then yes, that is acceptable. Otherwise, leave your own political issues (outside of BLM) at home. Sit down, listen, and support from behind. Don't upstage BLM when their marginalised voices need to be heard. That is racist.

Sincerely,
-Freedom

Dear Fellow Whites: So Disappointed

My Dear Fellow Whites:
I am so disappointed in you. I thought that we had finally collectively got it, that we finally understood that Black Lives Matter, no strings attached, no quid pro quos, no caveats. Yet when cops fall to bullets in Dallas, our first knee-jerk reaction is not to call for patience or to wait for details before rendering decisions. We immediately jumped to the conclusion that Black People carried out that shooting in Dallas and started preaching about how it is ok to care for the lives of cops, and how we can't respond to violence with violence.

That last wasn't even intended for ourselves. We were being preachy. We were falling back on our deeply entrenched habit of assuming that rather nasty trope of Black People being inherently violent and of quoting famous Black People only when it suits our comfort. Our first reaction to a disruption of a peaceful protest in Dallas was to selectively seek comfort and affirmation from Black People and then throw validation for that comfort-seeking back in their faces with an I Told You So.

We don't know who the Dallas shooter was, or why that person shot. Obviously, it doesn't take much to distract us from our support for Black Lives to return to our old habits of propping up our own comfort.

The police have little to fear from Black People. The numbers bear this out. Police have little to fear from protesters. The numbers bear this out, as well. In fact, as reported on Democracy Now this morning, police have not been safer than during the Obama presidency, during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet the first thing that we whites did when cops got shot in Dallas was to limply drop the Black Lives Matter banner that we had FINALLY picked up and to carry on with our self-reassurances that it is ok to love cops and that Black People shouldn't be so violent.

There is something else born out by statistics and data: Black People and other People of Colour are the least safe at the hands of law enforcement officials. They are targetted disproportionately for action by law enforcement in comparison with their white counterparts; and they are murdered disproportionately by law enforcement in comparison with their white counterparts.

How is it that we whites were so easily distracted from Black Lives Matter? How is it that we once again demonstrated that we think our need to be comforted, especially comforted by Black People, more important than the very lives of Black People? I really am disappointed in us, fellow white people. We are supposed to be made of better stuff than this. Please let's stop, and let's demonstrate that we really can throw ourselves unswervingly behind folk who are systematically marginalised and disenfranchised.

#BlackLivesMatter

A "Not an Angel" for New York Times

Just as a reminder, the New York Times referred to murdered civilian Michael Brown as "not an angel" - an epithet which they did not use use even on a later-convicted mass murderer racist, who apparently had a "troubled past." Rapist's mug shot obtained from Jezebel: http://jezebel.com/heres-a-mugshot-from-the-night-of-brock-turners-actual-1780935025.

Black Inventors, Clocks, and America

If you haven't heard of Ahmed Mohamed of #‎IStandWithAhmed‬ fame, you've been living under a painted white rock. Here is the thing, though. You people all act as though you've never seen a black man with a clock before in America.

Please open your textbooks to page 22 now and meet Benjamin Banneker, a self-made scientist and almanac author. Banneker was born a free man of Guinean ancestry whose maternal grandfather was a prince. Gifted one day with a watch, Banneker disassembled it several times to examine it, then made the first clock constructed in this country.

‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬

Image: Black matting with photo of Benjamin Banneker (a fine young black man) in the centre. His name is written on both sides of his photo. Above the photo, the following in white Tempus: "You people act as though you've never seen a black man with a clock in America." Below, in white Times New Roman: "Please turn to page 22 in your textbooks now. https://archive.org/stream/bulletinunitedst2311964unit#page/22"
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Alicia Garza: Black Lives Hero

The Root covered Alicia Garza thus:

Two years ago, Alicia Garza was publicly grieving the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, when three seemingly innocuous words flowed from her keyboard, and proved to be anything but: Black lives matter. That simple but profound assertion would come to rattle the establishment, bounce onto magazine covers and helped drive a crusade for racial justice not seen since the 1960s. In addition to her day job with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Garza, who identifies as queer, often uses her platform to widen the space of blackness, especially unmasking the far-too-frequent violence against trans and gender-nonconforming people of color in our communities. Her beautiful refrain (and work) not only insists on the protection of black bodies but on the opening of black minds. We especially thank her for her heart.


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Slavery Isn't a Thing of the Past

"My last enslaved uncle died when I was 14."
-someone who is alive today

Black Lives Matter.

Two, Four, Six, Eight: Boy, Do We Discriminate!

My attempts at compiling information related to racist discrimination against black, bearing especially in mind the new argument that class trumps race in terms of negative impacts.

At this point, I have been reading all day long, and my eyes are burning. Forgive me for the formatting hell that ensues.

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The Case for Reparations
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic
June 2014 issue
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at New York University, studied children born from 1955 through 1970 and found that 4 percent of whites and 62 percent of blacks across America had been raised in poor neighborhoods. A generation later, the same study showed, virtually nothing had changed. And whereas whites born into affluent neighborhoods tended to remain in affluent neighborhoods, blacks tended to fall out of them.

Sharkey’s research shows that black families making $100,000 typically live in the kinds of neighborhoods inhabited by white families making $30,000.

The Pew Research Center estimates that white households are worth roughly 20 times as much as black households, and that whereas only 15 percent of whites have zero or negative wealth, more than a third of blacks do.

In 2012, the Manhattan Institute cheerily noted that segregation had declined since the 1960s. And yet African Americans still remained—by far—the most segregated ethnic group in the country.


The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets
Devah Pager and Hana Shepherd
Annu Rev Sociol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 Aug 4.
Published in final edited form as:
Annu Rev Sociol. 2008 Jan 1; 34: 181–209
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2915460/
African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as whites (Hispanics are only marginally so), and the wages of both blacks and Hispanics continue to lag well behind those of whites.

Whites possess roughly 12 times the wealth of African Americans; in fact, whites near the bottom of the income distribution possess more wealth than blacks near the top of the income distribution (Oliver & Shapiro 1997, p. 86). Available evidence suggests that blacks and Hispanics face higher rejection rates and less favorable terms in securing mortgages than do whites with similar credit characteristics (Ross & Yinger 1999).

A 2005 report by New Jersey Citizen Action using data from two New Jersey lawsuits found that, between 1993 and 2000, blacks and Hispanics were disproportionately subject to financing markup charges at car dealerships, with minority customers paying an average of $339 more than whites with similar credit histories. Harris et al. (2005) analyze federal court cases of consumer discrimination filed from 1990 to 2002, examining the dimensions of subtle and overt degradation (including extended waiting periods, prepay requirements, and higher prices, as well as increased surveillance and verbal and/or physical attacks) and subtle and overt denial of goods and services. They report cases filed in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, grocery/food stores, clothing stores, department stores, home improvement stores, and office equipment stores filed by members of many racial minority groups.

African Americans were as segregated from whites in 1990 as they had been at the start of the twentieth century, and levels of segregation appear unaffected by rising socioeconomic status (Massey & Denton 1993). Although segregation appears to have modestly decreased between 1980 and 2000 (Logan et al. 2004), blacks (and to a lesser extent other minority groups) continue to experience patterns of residential placement markedly different from whites.

The weight of existing evidence suggests that discrimination does continue to affect the allocation of contemporary opportunities; and, further, given the often covert, indirect, and cumulative nature of these effects, our current estimates may in fact understate the degree to which discrimination contributes to the poor social and economic outcomes of minority groups.


Subtle Yet Significant: The Existence and Impact of Everyday Racial Discrimination in the Workplace
Elizabeth A. Deitch
Adam Barsky
Rebecca M. Butz
Suzanne Chan
Arthur P. Brief
Jill C. Bradley
doi: 10.1177/00187267035611002 Human Relations November 2003 vol. 56 no. 11 1299-1324
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/56/11/1299.short
In this article, we argue that research concerning workplace discrimination could be advanced by considering ‘everyday discrimination,’ that is, the subtle, pervasive discriminatory acts experienced by members of stigmatized groups on a daily basis. Three studies are reported which use secondary data analysis techniques to provide evidence for the existence of everyday workplace discrimination against Blacks. In addition to demonstrating the occurrence of such discrimination, evidence is presented which indicates that the experience of everyday discrimination is negatively associated with various indicators of well-being. The implications of these findings for organizations and for discrimination researchers are discussed.


A Multilevel Analysis of the Relationship Between Institutional and Individual Racial Discrimination and Health Status
Gilbert C. Gee, PhD
American Journal of Public Health: April 2002, Vol. 92, No. 4, pp. 615-623.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.92.4.615
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.92.4.615
Results. Individual and institutional measures of racial discrimination were associated with health status after control for acculturation, sex, age, social support, income, health insurance, employment status, education, neighborhood poverty, and housing value.

Conclusions. The data support the hypothesis that discrimination at multiple levels influences the health of minority group members.

Racism, Terrorism, and Self-Reflection

Have you looked inside and confronted what lies within?

Recently, American society has had much over which to pat its back. We have made strides in ridding our public sphere of a symbol of hatred. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of Fair Housing and neutral re-districting. However, this is nowhere near enough.

In this country, black people continue to be discriminated against in terms of employment, housing, and health care access. Higher prices are quoted black people for the same, less expensive services as are accessed by whites. Black people are incarcerated at far higher rates than whites, and for offenses which are much more petty. In fact, black people are executed by the state at rates far higher than their white counterparts.

This is why the Supreme Court ruling in favour of problematic lethal injection drugs is as worrisome as it is: that torturous cocktail will be disproportionately used against black people. In addition, the Supreme Court's ruling against the EPA will allow coal plants to continue spewing pollution into mostly black communities.

We already know that there is a racism problem in America: our collective attention has been gripped by images of a white supremacist having gunned down worshippers at a black church and of the seven or eight black church burnings that have taken place since. Some of us have even heard of the KKK letters that have been sent to three female pastors of black churches. We have all been made painfully aware of the level of police violence against black people.

How many of us, though, are paying attention to these ongoing, less visible, less hyped everyday forms of racism faced by black people? How many of us follow those stories? How many of us respond by calling on our elected officials to change policies? Supporting protests? Taking direct action? How many of us have looked inside for those answers and faced that which we would much rather ignore?

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The following photo of Mt Zion AME burning is contained for the purpose of Facebook visibility.

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My Note:
People of Color Are Already Getting Hit the Hardest by Climate Change
Stephen Hsieh
22 April 2014
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179407/people-color-are-already-getting-hit-hardest-climate-change
Sixty-eight percent of African-Americans live within thirty miles of a coal-fired power plant, the zone of maximum exposure to pollutants that cause an array of ailments, from heart disease to birth defects. Communities of color breathe in nearly 40 percent more polluted air than whites.
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JUSTICE

We cannot all of us be equal while so many of us are not. Below the image is a very extensive reading list. Take advantage of it.

Ta-Nehisi Coates Explains History of Racism
* The Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates -
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631
* How Racism Invented Race in America, Ta-Nehisi Coates -
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations-a-narrative-bibliography/372000
* Slavery Made America, Ta-Nehisi Coates -
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/slavery-made-america/373288
* Home Is Where the Hatred Is, Ta-Nehisi Coates -
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/home-is-where-the-hatred-is/373510
* How to Steal Things, Exploit People, and Avoid All Responsibility,
Ta-Nehisi Coates -
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/the-road-to-reparations/373578


Link List in Wake of Ferguson
* http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/police-shootings-michael-brown-ferguson-black-men
* http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/08/things-stop-distracted-black-person-gets-murdered-police
* http://www.colorlines.com/archives/2007/11/black_latino_suburbs_have_most_shootings.html
* https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154871820855551&set=a.171202385550


Shameless Plugs
(mostly my reading lists)
* http://freedomtwobe.blogspot.com/2015/04/we-have-been-here-before-racism-and.html
* http://freedomtwobe.blogspot.com/2015/06/on-rachel-dolezal.html
* http://freedomtwobe.blogspot.com/2015/06/charleston-shooting-reader.html
* http://freedomtwobe.blogspot.com/2015/02/racism-vs-prejudice-reader.html


Books
* White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-civil Rights Era -
https://books.google.com/books?id=rVcdyCYwnosC
* Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of
Racial Inequality in America -
https://books.google.com/books?id=jPBdz1ykpagC
* White Racism: The Basics - https://books.google.com/books?id=jcijJkoD6AoC
* Portraits of White Racism - https://books.google.com/books?id=EoVTPBVWzGsC
* The Everyday Language of White Racism -
https://books.google.com/books?id=RNL9Q3wy9r4C


Hashtag Section
‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬
‪#‎CharlestonShooting‬
‪#‎McKinney‬
‪#‎RenishaMcBride‬
‪#‎AiyanaJones‬
‪#‎IslanNettles‬
‪#‎CeCeMcDonald‬
‪#‎DeshawndaBradley‬
‪#‎DajerriaBecton‬
‪#‎TrayvonMartin‬
‪#‎MichelleCusseax‬
‪#‎EricGarner‬
‪#‎OscarGrant‬
‪#‎MichaelBrown‬
‪#‎DeAndreJoshua‬
‪#‎ShawnGray‬
‪#‎AngeliaMangum‬
‪#‎TjhishaBall‬

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A Reader

Confederate Flags and Institutional Racism
Charles M. Blow, New York Times
24 June 2015
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/opinion/charles-blow-confederate-flags-and-institutional-racism.html
We should move overt symbols of racial division to places like museums, where they can be displayed in proper context and where education is part of the mission. ... When do we move from our consensus over taking down symbols to the much harder and more important work of taking down structures? ... Institutional racism is often like a pathogen in the blood: You can’t see it; you have to test for it. But you can see its destructive effects as it sickens the host. Furthermore, institutional racism doesn’t require the enlisting of individual racists. The machine does the discriminating.

New York Times columnist and CNN commentator Mr Blow graduated magna cum laude from Grambling State University in Louisiana, where he received a B.A. in mass communications. Blow is author of Fire Shut Up In My Bones.

“They Were So Nice”: 4 Reasons I’ve Been Nice About Racism and Why I Won’t Be Anymore
Maisha Z. Johnson, 24 June 2015
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2015/06/they-were-so-nice-4-reasons-ive-been-nice-about-racism-and-why-i-wont-be-anymore
It’s demeaning for me to have to approach someone with care for their feelings as I explain the terror of life as a black person in this country. ... Ever feel like this idea of rationality is some kind of trick? Hoops for people of color to jump through to prove we’re civilized creatures worthy of respect – because we should be able to keep calm while we’re violently losing our lives.
...
Racist people are not being kind when they dismiss my right to demand to stay alive. Racist systems are not being kind when they keep people of color in poverty, prison, and early graves. To say the least, being impolite in the face of all of this doesn’t take away from my worth. I’m done believing that being nice defines the value of persecuted people.

Maisha Z. Johnson is the founder of Inkblot Arts, a project to amplify voices through writing, editing, and facilitation. She has an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University and a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Johnson is the author of Through Your Own Words: 51 Writing Prompts for Healing and Self-Care (Inkblot Arts 2014) and has also written a full-length collection of poetry, No Parachutes to Carry Me Home.

Confederate flag ‘debate’ is necessary, but black America still longs for real change
Lincoln Blades, The Grio
24 June 2015
http://thegrio.com/2015/06/24/confederate-flag-debate-distraction
Its proponents may say that I should take account of what the flag means to them, but I’m no more willing to do that than I am to question what level of nuanced pride Germans in the mid-twentieth century may have received from the swastika. ... And as I watch this debate evolve, I am filled with terror from one possible outcome: That we begin focusing so much on this Confederate flag issue that its removal becomes the context with which we gauge the lives lost in Emanuel AME church, while ignoring the far more pressing issues that are destroying the collective African-American community. ... Until we decide it’s important enough to confront the very real, systemic social ramifications of white supremacy, this debate will remain nothing more than a distraction with a false prize, meant to placate black rage while giving us the impression that we enacted change, when all we did was FINALLY agree to remove the white domestic terrorists’ loser-logo.

Lincoln Blades is founder at the critically acclaimed blog ThisIsYourConscience.com. He is a writer, author, podcaster and public speaker. Blades wrote "You're Not A Victim, You're A Volunteer: How To Stop Letting Love Kick Your Ass".

#WakeUp: 7 Classic Revolutionary Reads for Black Millennials
Philip Jackson, The Root
24 June 2015
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/06/_7_classic_revolutionary_books_for_black_millennials.html
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Charleston Shooting: A Reader

A roundup of perspectives, a profile of one of the victims, commentary, and related content,all topped off with a listing of the victims of the Charleston shooting. Again, I attempt to keep my voice asn those of other whites minimal.

Victims

Cynthia Hurd
Susie Jackson
Tywanza Sanders
Rev. Clementa Pinckney
Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor
Myra Thompson
Ethel Lance
Rev. Daniel Simmons

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Perspective

A friend of accused Charleston church shooter claims that the suspect had spoken about how he was angered by the uproar over the Trayvon Martin shooting and “wanted something to spark up the race war again.” Joey Meek recalled how Roof, 21, spoke about how he wanted segregation reinstated. “He said that he thought of the in general as a race was bringing down the white race,” Meek said. “He never said the n-word, he never made racial slurs, he never targeted a specific black person. He never did any of that so it was just pretty much a shock,” Meek said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/friend-accused-sc-shooter-claims-wanted-start-race/story?id=31874063

A note that the terrorist knew whom he was seeking to kill. "A relative of one of the nine people killed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, said a survivor of the massacre told her the shooter entered the church asking to see the Rev. Clementa Pinckney. 'They showed him where he was and Clementa, being the kind-spirited person that he is, he had him [the shooter, identified as suspect Dylann Roof] sit next to him,' Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of the church's slain pastor, told ABC News today after speaking with one of the survivors who was in the church.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/charleston-shooting-gunman-allegedly-survivor-inside-church/story?id=31872085

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Profile

Charleston Shooting Victim Clementa Pinckney's Chilling Speech about Walter Scott
Adam Geller and Seanna Adcox, Associated Press (The Grio)
18 June 2015
http://thegrio.com/2015/06/18/clementa-pinckney-victim-walter-scott

"Clem was a well-spoken young man. He never raised his voice. He emulated, I guess we would say, the pastors that he came in contact with. He said he had a calling to help people. ... We take him as our little boy, even though he became…such a humble young man. You know you couldn’t help but love him. It hurts. It hurts."
-retired Rev. Thomas E. McClary

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Commentary

American Muslims Have a Race Problem
Zeba Khan, Al Jazeera
16 June 2015
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/6/american-muslims-have-a-race-problem.html
Immigrants from the Middle East hail from a region whose slave trade commoditized at least 10 million Africans, particularly women, over millennia. Saudi Arabia and Yemen abolished slavery only in 1962, and today, there are frequent reports of abuse and exploitation of African and Asian domestic workers throughout the region.

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Black Girl Dangerous wrote the following reaction validly lashing out at whites, who among others things have been trying to keep the spotlight on themselves and other whites.

Mia McKenzie is a writer who studied at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a black feminist whose work has won awards such as the Lambda Literary Award. 

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'Things Fall Apart': On Mother Emanuel and White Terrorism
Kirsten West Savali, The Root
29 June 2015
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/06/_things_fall_apart_on_mother_emanuel_and_white_terrorism.html

We are a nation sick with racism, refusing to seek comprehensive treatment, and black people are disproportionately suffering because of it.

On the run and armed, the threat Roof posed wasn’t ‘perceived,’ as is the excuse typically given when innocent and unarmed black people are gunned down around the country by thugs with badges -- or men whose whiteness grants them the same freedom and authority to kill with impunity. Still, he was quietly captured 200 miles away in Shelby, North Carolina and escorted to a plane that transported him back to Charleston without a blonde hair on his head out of place. As usual, killing while white affords you protection and the presumption of innocence, while existing while black gets you killed.

True to form, a mainstream media complex crafted to perpetuate white supremacy has quoted family members describing Roof as “quiet and soft spoken” and his sadistic smile has been described by media as “baby-faced.” Just as insulting, Republican Governor Nikki Haley pulled out her best version of white tears as she led law enforcement on a victory lap for capturing the racist killer.

Let’s be clear: Haley’s commitment to flying a flag drenched in the blood, sweat and tears of enslaved Africans, and her stance that state hate crime legislation is not needed, proves that she doesn’t give a damn about the souls of black folks. To paraphrase Audre Lorde, her guilt does not serve us and she’s better off saving her tears for someone else, possibly the hypocritical white Christians who screamed #IAmCharlie in support of Islamophobic free speech, but have yet to declare #IAmCharleston.

The infestation of racism will continue to gnaw relentlessly at this country’s foundation—unnoticed by those not living within its margins and crevices—until things fall apart and it all comes down.

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White Terrorism Is as Old as America
Brit Bennett, New York Times
19 June 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/magazine/white-terrorism-is-as-old-as-america.html

Media outlets have been reluctant to classify the Charleston shooting as terrorism, despite how eerily it echoes our country’s history of terrorism. American-bred terrorism originated in order to restrict the movement and freedom of newly liberated black Americans who, for the first time, began to gain an element of political power. The Ku Klux Klan Act, which would in part, lawmakers hoped, suppress the Klan through the use of military force, was one of America’s first pieces of antiterrorism legislation. When it became federal law in 1871, nine South Carolina counties were placed under martial law, and scores of people were arrested.

This is the privilege of whiteness: While a terrorist may be white, his violence is never based in his whiteness. A white terrorist has unique, complicated motives that we will never comprehend. He can be a disturbed loner or a monster. He is either mentally ill or pure evil. The white terrorist exists solely as a dyad of extremes: Either he is humanized to the point of sympathy or he is so monstrous that he almost becomes mythological. Either way, he is never indicative of anything larger about whiteness, nor is he ever a garden-variety racist. He represents nothing but himself. A white terrorist is anything that frames him as an anomaly and separates him from the long, storied history of white terrorism.

In America’s contemporary imagination, terrorism is foreign and brown. Those terrorists do not have complex motivations. We do not urge one another to reserve judgment until we search through their Facebook histories or interview their friends. We do not trot out psychologists to analyze their mental states. We know immediately why they kill. But a white terrorist is an enigma. A white terrorist has no history, no context, no origin. He is forever unknowable. His very existence is unspeakable. We see him, but we pretend we cannot. He is a ghost floating in the night.

Brit Bennett is a writer whose debut novel, “The Mothers,” is forthcoming from Riverhead Books.

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Related

1. White Topeka, Kan. Residents Find KKK Flyers on Their Property
Nigel Roberts, The Root
19 June 2015
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/06/white_topeka_kan_residents_find_kkk_flyers_on_their_property.html

2. Va. Man Threatens Richmond Churchgoers: ‘I’m Gonna Kill All You and All You Are Gonna Get Killed Tonight’
Breanna Edwards, The Root
19 June 2015
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/06/va_man_threatens_richmond_churchgoers_i_m_gonna_kill_all_you_and_all_you.html

3. Inside the Mind of Dylann Roof: Alleged Racist Manifesto Reveals Deep Hatred of Blacks
Lynette Holloway, The Root
20 June 2015
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/06/inside_the_mind_of_dylann_roof_alleged_racist_manifesto_reveals_deep_hatred.html

A 2,000-word screed believed to be written by Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old accused shooter in the Charleston, S. C., church massacre, are the ramblings of a man with a deep-seated hatred toward blacks. The manifesto was discovered at lastrhodesian.com through a Reverse Whois lookup on domaintools.com and is registered to Roof, Gawker reports.

"I have no choice," the author writes. "I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet (sic). Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me."

Lynnette Holloway is a journalist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

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