Pardon me Beloveds~
This will sting, as the physician says when he gives a shot.
I've been trying so hard to make you smile and uplift your heart in the midst of such ongoing distress and pain....I feel that these two articles are worthy my diverting from that effort. And I do kiss the sting with a great music selection at the end from the reggae posse, Third World.
We must imagine and think beyond the appearance these articles portray so we can capture new possibilities to change the current physical reality in our communities and world.
Whether we are moved to leave America, or remain within her boundaries, our own transformation is critical and mandatory. For America's headlines these days tell the story of a current and ongoing American policy with subsequent procedures which purposefully deny African-Americans of their right to the fullness of life. No matter what anyone else thinks or says, we know that wherever we choose to live, we are meant to be a part of a harmonious environment, be prosperous and to thrive and flourish.
Imagine if American judicial observers, philosophers, and academicians were looking outward, and observing the history, statistics and phenomenon which occur here daily, in another nation. They would surely declare that genocide against that targeted segment of the population was being waged there.
I say, that genocide is being perpetrated by systemic unequal application of the law and the justice system resulting in criminal convictions and mass incarcerations of disproportionate numbers. It is further being enforced in the communities of U. S. cities by national law enforcement procedures of street execution, carried out by local police jurisdictions. This policy is protected by laws that allow murdering police officers to go free. (click this link How the Law Protects Police Who Kill )
The fight of descendants of Africans enslaved in America to enjoy citizenship equality has been the source of change which has deeply benefited this nation and brought American society closer to reflecting the words of it's illustrious Constitution. Our efforts to simply live fulfilling our potential, and creating space for our talents, genius and abilities to be expressed, has inspired millions over the globe to sing our song which declared our determination to 'Overcome'.
Children of the First people of Earth, we have continuously been humanities' example of Nature's truest principles. Our very existence here today proves that we are Master Survivors demonstrating Nature's inherent impetus: which loves to live, is strong and when uninhibited will constantly move towards greater freedom and expressions of beauty and wholeness. We embody an unlimited Intelligence, which we can sense and which will always lead us to strive to be all that we are meant to be here on Earth.
In this time, dig deep Beloveds. Let your senses feel 'beneath the surface' for understanding. Seeing clearly is important to any success, so clarity about 'what is' at the heart of these matters is the first objective. Clarity arises when one takes time and practices being still, quiet and listening inwardly.
The answers are within YOU. The means to transform self and situations are within your Heart's imagination. And as Third World sings to us....YOU'VE GOT THE POWER.
lovu,
Kendke
red highlighting is mine
Tamir Rice of Cleveland would be alive today had he been a white 12-year-old playing with a toy gun in just about any middle-class neighborhood in the country on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 2014.
But Tamir, who was shot to death by a white police officer that day, had the misfortune of being black in a poor area of Cleveland, where the police have historically behaved as an occupying force that shoots first and asks questions later. To grow up black and male in such a place is to live a highly circumscribed life, hemmed in by forces that deny your humanity and conspire to kill you.
Those forces hovered over the proceedings on Monday when a grand jury declined to indict Officer Timothy Loehmann in the killing and Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, explained why he had asked the grand jurors to not bring charges. Mr. McGinty described the events leading up to Tamir’s death as tragic series of errors and “miscommunications” that began when a 911 caller said a male who was “probably a juvenile” was waving a “probably fake” gun at people in a park.
The fact that those caveats never reached Officer Loehmann — who shot the child within seconds of arriving on the scene — was more than just an administrative misstep. It reflects an utter disregard for the lives of the city’s black residents. That disregard pervades every aspect of this case and begins with the fact that the department failed to even review Officer Loehmann’s work history before giving him the power of life and death over the citizens of Cleveland. Had the department done so, it would have found that Officer Loehmann had quit a suburban police department where he had showed a “dangerous loss of composure” during firearms training and was found to be emotionally unfit for the stress of the job.
Officer Loehmann joined a police department that itself had acquired a well-documented reputation for wanton violence and for shooting at people who posed no threat to the police or others. In a particularly striking event, documented by the Justice Department last year, officers mistook the sound of a car backfiring for a gunshot. They chased down and fired at the vehicle 137 times, killing two occupants who turned out to be unarmed.
The Police Department’s disregard for life was fully evident in the way the officers behaved after shooting Tamir. A surveillance video shows them standing by the child for four minutes without giving medical assistance, which was finally provided by an F.B.I. agent who happened to be in the neighborhood. Officer Frank Garmback, Officer Loehmann’s partner, nonetheless tackled the wounded boy’s 14-year-old sister as she tried to rush to his side. One can only imagine her suffering as she watched in handcuffs from the back seat of the squad car while her brother lay bleeding on the ground.
In addition to portraying the killing as a result of a tragic misunderstanding, prosecutors have also suggested the officer’s decision to kill Tamir was shaped by the fact that the surrounding neighborhood had a history of violence and that the boy appeared to be older than 12 because he was big for his age.
These arguments sidestep the history of violent, discriminatory police actions that led up to this boy’s death. They also have the reprehensible effect of shifting the responsibility for this death onto the shoulders of this very young victim.
I don't know much about this journalist, but he raises some real issues with the Obama Presidency, which I happen to agree with.
Obama’s Haunting Legacy
A two-term presidency spent on running away from Black America.
Takeaways
- Barack Obama has spent much of his presidency running away from the fact that he is a black man.
- Barack Obama: a two-term black president who did very little for people of his own color.
- Obama’s election gave white America an ounce of comfort about its “liberalism.” But what has it given black America?
- The U.S. political culture is great at celebrating “events” and crises, but very poor at tackling structural issues.
- Obama will leave office knowing that LBJ did more for blacks than the first black man elected to the Oval Office.
Whatever the reason, it seems the last thing he wanted to become known for is that he would be the one President in recent memory who did something meaningful for young black men.
In fact, it could be said that Obama – the 2008 presidential campaign notwithstanding – has spent much of his time running away from African-American issues. He and his campaign handlers were afraid that it just wasn’t a “cool” issue that would sit well with most voters at election time.
Turning a Blind Eye
But even after he was reelected in 2012, his approach did not change. Meanwhile, African-Americans continued to experience the challenges facing many U.S. communities, especially young males, in a much more acute fashion.Even if the sitting U.S. President finally felt liberated and were to tackle this particular topic now, it wouldn’t matter any longer. He is a “lame duck,” which is a nice term to say that his political influence is vanishing fast.
Unfortunately for Obama, the understandable rage especially of young black men has come to haunt him — yet again. This time, it wasn’t “just” in a suburb of St. Louis in the middle of the country. It happened in the city of Baltimore, the next largest city close by the U.S. capital.
The writing had been on the wall all along. Anybody who has ever driven through the destitute, blighted areas of large parts of downtown Baltimore in broad daylight had to wonder about this powder keg.
But rather than tackling the underlying issues head on, the president was busy running away from his race.
U.S. opinion leaders, whenever things flared up in the banlieues of Paris, have often reflexively claimed that France’s problems with its minority youths could not happen here in the United States.
Well, it has – and it just did again. True, the situation is not exactly comparable. In the French case, the frustration that boils over from time to time is largely that of the children of mid-20th century immigrants.
In contrast, in the U.S. case, it is the offspring of people that have been here for hundreds of years. Advantage: France.
Clinton Culpability
The Clinton family is slowly coming to terms with its own role and responsibility in the steady deterioration of the situation of young urban blacks. Bill Clinton’s policies in the 1990s pushed mass incarcerations, often even for petty crimes.That may have conveniently curried favor with white “law and order” voters after the crisis years of the 1980s, but it did nothing to address the underlying problems, joblessness and lack of investment and training.
Perversely, these policies also created true equality between black and white in one regard – about the same total number of prisoners are whites and blacks, even though the latter account for less than 13% of the overall population.
Graphic Credit: Washington Post
America, anno 2015, thus finds itself near the end of the reign of a two-term Black president who did very little for people of his own color.
A Shallow Legacy
The stain on Barack Obama’s record historically will be that he used the race issue as an attribute to get elected – and then did his best to forget about it.His recent remark about the events in Baltimore, referring to “thugs and criminals,” on the face of it is of course true on some level. Some of the black rage manifested itself in criminal acts. And he did question the police actions. But his words seem narrowly designed to show his indignation and pretty much leave it there.
In the end, this president is a perfect reflection of the mainstream media, à la CNN.
The media decamped into downtown Baltimore for a few days of breathless reporting (and may even try for a Pulitzer-garnering feature series), before the cavalcade simply marches on.
It always happens that way. The U.S. political culture is great at celebrating “events” and crises, but very poor at tackling structural issues. Not enough excitement in that – unless it translates into building out the national security state. That’s a profitable venture for many companies, generating lots of Congressional appropriations.
Urban crises, or so it seems, are thus good for bouts of media titillation, but not for any serious efforts to tackle them.
It is a true shame that Obama will leave office knowing that Lyndon B. Johnson, a white man from very conservative Texas did more for black people half a century ago than the much advertised first election of a black man to the Oval Office.
The latter event, often described as historic, was certainly good for Barack Obama. It also gave white America an ounce of comfort about its “liberalism.” But what about black America? Aside from pure symbolism, nothing much.
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