Sun-down towns still exist

Sundown towns, sometimes known as sunset towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice racism a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of racial, discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence.



Eventhough this clip is 30 years old these type of towns still exist today but not a lot of media coverage talks about it. Well, after Donald Trump won the presidential election many racist incidents were taking place all over America simultaneously. These attitudes persist in the present times.

From Maine to California, thousands of communities kept out African Americans (or sometimes Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, etc.) by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called "sundown towns" because some of them posted signs at their city limits reading, typically, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In ___." 

Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension
of American Racism by James W. Loewen

Some towns are still all white on purpose. Their chilling stories have been joined more recently by the many elite (and some not so elite) suburbs like Grosse Pointe, MI, or Edina, MN, that have excluded nonwhites by "kinder gentler means." When I began this research, I expected to find about 10 sundown towns in Illinois (my home state) and perhaps 50 across the country. Instead, James Loewen has found about 507 in Illinois alone and thousands across the United States. There is a book called Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of Segregation in America by James W. Loewen that details in a sweeping analysis of American suburban residential patterns of strict racial exclusion which was the norm in American towns and villages from sea to shining sea for much of the twentieth century.

The video below is from 2016 present day and still look at the mindset of hateful racists. Warning: explicit language.



Insolent Politics
Sources: Sundown.tougaloo.edu, EncyclopediaOfArkansas.net

When white men taunt & cuss at police daring to shoot

This is one of many, many reasons why America has failed and has fallen from being one of the best countries in the world to one of the most hated, abhorred, mocked and scorned especially with the recent 2016 presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The blatant attacks on police officers by white men happen almost everyday and the country turns a blind eye and does not report these incidents on major news networks while those same networks show the most heinous acts by police officers & white citizens shooting and killing UNARMED African American boys and men.

The following video is a traffic stop that goes wrong when Andrew H. Brannan pulled out an assault rifle and killed Deputy Kyle Dinkheller. Brannan left his vehicle and sarcastically prodded Dinkheller to shoot him, screamed that he was a “goddamn Vietnam combat veteran,” and then retrieved a rifle from his pickup truck, according to a police cruiser dashboard camera video later released. Brannan said he lost his temper with Laurens County Sheriff, Deputy Kyle Dinkheller, on Jan. 12, 1998, after driving 100 mph on a country road and getting pulled over by the officer.

The two men exchanged shots, with Brannan suffering one gunshot wound to the abdomen and Dinkheller getting hit nine times. The graphic video shows Dinkheller, a Laurens County deputy, screaming in terror and pain as Brannan closes in on him and kills him at point-blank range after reloading.




These type of incidents happened 16 years before the killing of Mike Brown Jr. The police officer on the scene was Deputy Dinkheller who was shot and killed after pulling over a man on a rural road about 6 miles north of Dublin, Georgia. During the traffic stop Dinkheller called for backup. Before backup arrived a white male shot Deputy Dinkheller with a M1 carbine rifle. The officer was able to return fire, striking the suspect in the stomach.

That's interesting how the suspect just went back to his truck, reached in to load his assault rifle with the police officer yelling at him to put the gun down. I'm not advocating violence but I think the Deputy should have not allowed the suspect to reach in the pickup truck. And I'm sure that Dinkheller had no idea what this madman had in mind to do but that's where the power of systemic privilege shows it awkward face.The deputy kept telling the man to "put the gun down" and no shots were fired at the suspect by the officer. Simply unbelievable right? Not if you are white in America. It is apparent that systemic privilege, class and racism is also to blame because if the suspect was african american the suspect would be dead on the spot with a dozen or more fatal bullet wounds. 12-year old Tamir Rice was a CHILD with a TOY GUN and was NOT told to "put the gun down!". Tamir was shot within two seconds after police arrival!

As a matter of fact, the white male suspect in the above video is told, what seems like 50 times, to "put the gun down". The white suspect even says “No” to the officer!
This video is an example of how certain groups of people in America have certain privileges and get away with it EVERYDAY with little to no consequence and because of this police officers lose their lives. This is why people hate America with its sick display of blatant racism, privilege and triple standards. Instead of shooting the suspect to wound him the suspect loaded rounds into an assault rifle and went after the deputy to kill him after the dangerous suspect was constantly told to "put the gun down" and the deputy paid for it with his life. Deputy Kyle Dinkheller gave Andrew Brannan several opportunities, more than necessary, to comply and put down the gun but this selfish Brannan guy took his privilege to the point of rage that led to murder.

Kyle Wayne Dinkheller was a deputy with the Laurens County Sheriff's
Office in the U.S. state of Georgia. After his death, he was named the 1998
Deputy Sheriff of the Year by the Georgia Sheriffs' Association.

Dinkheller's murder continues to get national attention (e.g., training in police academies) because the stop and shootout were captured on a personal video recorder Deputy Dinkheller had placed on his patrol car dashboard and activated when he stopped Brannan. Dinkheller was born on June 18, 1975 in San Diego, California. He graduated from California's Quartz Hill High School in 1993. He joined the Lauren's County Sheriff's Office as a jailer in March 1995 and became a certified peace officer with the State of Georgia in 1996. He was just 22 years old when he was murdered. Dinkheller is survived by his wife, Angela, and their children Ashley and Cody.
For the full description of the incident visit the article Officer down which is on the PoliceMarksman website.

There are hundreds of other incidents if not thousands of white suspects attacking and/or shooting at police officers and being treated with dignity and respect and not being murdered in cold blood. In fact, these white suspects were all armed with assault rifles or automatic handguns and are almost never killed on the spot but are brought down by tasers or bean bags which are non deadly ways to take down an armed suspect. Deputy Dinkheller fired back and tried to protect himself but the suspect's rifle was too powerful and Dinkheller was shot too many times to give good aim. But on the other side of things is the way that within two seconds of the police car’s arrival, Officer Loehmann shot Tamir Rice in the abdomen from point-blank range, raising doubts that he could have warned the boy three times to raise his hands, as the police later claimed.

Insolent Politics
Sources: Countercurrentnews.com, WashingtonPost.com, PoliceMarksmen.com

Racist imagery at Joe's Crab Shack in Roseville Minneapolis upsets two visiting patrons

Blatant racism, racist imagery and racially charged incidents are running rampant in America. Being that it is the 21st century it sure seems like the United States of America is moving backwards when it comes to race relations.

Lynching is the practice whereby a mob--usually several dozen or several hundred persons--takes the law into its own hands in order to injure and kill a person accused of some wrongdoing. The alleged offense can range from a serious crime like theft or murder to a mere violation of local customs or from false accusations. So how can a company such as Joe's Crab Shack publicly display such a heinous act in 2016? The answer... blatant racism and disrespect for African Americans. The U.S. is still divided on race, what a shame.

A mob of white americans smiling, grinning and enjoying
the lynchings of two black american young men. Notice the
man in the center pointing, he has a look of hate in his face.

America is a cultural melting pot where people from all walks of life should have an equal opportunity to good education, healthcare, living conditions and financial resources but that is only a dream for people of African descent who were born in the United States which is an unfortunate circumstance for the country and is the SOLE MAIN down fall of America. Celebrating and/or promoting the cruel death of a person by lynching because of the color of their skin is an inhumane and animalistic behavior that mentally sick human beings participate in.

Racial profiling example: Studies show that police are more likely to pull over and frisk blacks or Latinos than whites. In New York City, 80% of the stops made were blacks and Latinos, and 85% of those people were frisked, compared to a mere 8% of white people stopped (1). The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that an African American male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of going to jail in his lifetime, while a Latino male has a 17% chance, and a white male only has a 6% chance (2).

In Roseville Minneapolis a historical photo of a black man getting lynched was used as decoration on a table at Joe’s Crab Shack. After an offended patron posted it on social media, the restaurant released an apology.

Tyrone Williams of Minneapolis stated, “We just felt sick and confused, it was just sickening. It was disgusting." Mr. Williams and his friend Chauntyll Allen saw the photo embedded under laminate in their table. It seemed to capture an image of a public hanging of Richard Burleson in Texas. The sentence at the bottom of the photograph reads, "Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas on April 12th, 1895". The photo below was taken by Tyrone Williams.

In the top left corner of this pic is a picture of a black man
being lynched with a balloon caption saying, "All I said was
I don't like gumbo".

Chauntyll and Tyrone did not find the racist image amusing. After documenting the photo on their cell phones, they complained to management and left the restaurant without eating. Williams and Allen were joined by the NAACP in condemning Joe’s Crab Shack for allowing such imagery in their national chain of restaurants.

David G. Catalano has been the Chief
Operating Officer and Senior Vice President
of Ignite Restaurant Group, Inc., since
April 17, 2015.

David Catalano, Chief Operating Officer of Ignite Restaurant Group, released a statement to Fox 9 on Thursday apologizing for the "unacceptable" photo: "We take this matter very seriously, and the photo in question was immediately removed. We sincerely apologize to our guests who were disturbed by the image and we look forward to continuing to serve the Roseville community."

I respect the decision of David Catalano to not only remove racist imagery from that one franchise in Roseville but to remove all racist imagery from all of the Joe's Crab Shack's across America.

The City of Roseville issued a statement saying, "The City of Roseville was shocked and saddened to learn of the racist imagery being openly displayed at the Roseville location of national restaurant chain Joe’s Crab Shack. The city condemns this type of display in the strongest possible terms and calls on Joe’s Crab Shack to remove any and all racist imagery not only from its Roseville location, but all of its restaurants nationwide.

Insolent Politics

Sources: Fox9, CNBC, CivilRights.org, Bureau of Justice Statistics

(1) - 2 U.S. Department of Justice. "The Reality of Racial Profiling." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Accessed March 1, 2014, http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial-profiling2011/the-reality-of-racial.html. 

(2) - Bonczar, Thomas P., and Allen J. Beck, Ph.D.. "Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison." Bureau of Justice Statistics. Accessed March 1, 2014. http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/Llgsfp.pdf.

Unarmed Black Teen Shot to Death by White Homeowner

The death of Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old African-American woman, occurred on November 2, 2013, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Renisha McBride had crashed her car and then walked to a neighborhood in Dearborn Heights where she knocked on the door of a house. The homeowner, Theodore Wafer, shot McBride with a shotgun. Wafer contended that the shooting was accidental and that he thought his home was being broken into after he heard her banging on his door at 4:42 in the morning. Renisha's family believes she was knocking on his door for help. An autopsy found that she died of a single gunshot wound to the face.

19-year Renisha McBride was fatally shot in the back of
the head when knocking on a homeowner's door seeking help.

Defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter reminded the judge that this was not a premeditated murder. A recording of the 911 call Wafer placed after the shooting offered no clarity as to why he shot McBride.

“Uh, yes.... I just shot somebody on my front porch with a shotgun, banging on my door,” he said. He then gave his address, and, sounding a little confused, thanked the dispatcher and hung up.
Wafer lived in Dearborn Heights, a middle-class, predominantly white suburb west of Detroit. He testified during the trial that crime was rising in his neighborhood and said he “didn’t want to cower” in his own home. Tensions between neighboring towns and counties and the city of Detroit have been running high for as long as the city has struggled economically.

Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 17 years in Wafer’s case. He was found guilty of second-degree murder, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years, and two additional years were sought because a gun was involved.
Insolent Politics

Sources: The Huffington Post, The L.A. Times  

Martin Scorsese promotes Polish cinema

Academy award winning movie director Martin Scorsese has taken patronage over a Polish cinema film festival organized by the National Audiovisual Institute (NInA).

During the festival, National Audiovisual Institute will project 24 movies by Kieślowski, Zanussi and Wajda chosen  by the American artist and under the name Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema. “The festival features lots of great pictures, and regardless if one is familiar with them it is a distinguished opportunity to discover the greatness of Polish cinema on a big screen,” Scorsese said.

The festival has already visited Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Los Angeles and some cities in Canada, Australia, China and the UK. The event launched on February 10 and will last until December.

Iranian Women Banned From Attending Men's Volleyball Game

Iran banned women from attending the International Beach Volleyball Championships that ended Friday, the world volleyball governing body said.

The International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB) said allowing women to attend the five-day competition at Iran’s Kish Island had been a condition of its decision to let the Iranian volleyball federation host the men's tournament for the first time.

Female fans in Iran are traditionally barred from attending male-only sports matches. In my opinion, it seems that at least men and women can sit side by side and cheer on their favorite sports team and/or sports player. I feel that if men and women can't sit side by side they should at least let the women have their own cheering section. I love, respect and cherish different cultures, religion and beliefs and the many rules that come with each. But in this modern age of the 21st century, men and women should be allowed to cheer together in the same stadium when the event is an international event. The following video is a depiction of Iranian women arriving at a sports complex but at the entrance is a large sign that displays, "No Women Allowed."



The ban on women's attendance violates the “Fourth Fundamental Principle” — on nondiscrimination — of the FIVB’s own constitution, Human Rights Watch said ahead of the beach volleyball event. Well, this controversy is a huge contradiction to the FIVB's own constitution! Typical behavior from people with money, power and influence.

According to Human Rights Watch, the 2012 ban on women's attendance at men's volleyball matches followed a decision by the Iranian Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs to extend the 1979 ban on women attending games in soccer stadiums. I wonder why they extended the 1979 ban? This ban seems to be unfair and outdated if you ask me.

An appeals court in Tehran has dismissed charges against an Iranian-British woman who was jailed for trying to attend a men’s volleyball game, meaning that she will not have to return to prison.

Ghoncheh Ghavami, a young Iranian-British woman who was initially
detained while trying to attend a men’s volleyball game in Tehran.
Photograph: AP

Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 26-year-old law graduate of Soas, University of London, was released on a £20,000 bail in November after spending five months in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. She was arrested in June for taking part in a protest against a ban on female fans entering stadiums alongside men and subsequently sentenced to a year in prison.

Last summer of 2015, Ghavami stood outside Tehran’s Azadi stadium wearing a white scarf and holding up a placard. Along with a number of other women’s rights activists, she was demanding to be allowed to watch Iran’s volleyball team play against Italy. The Islamic republic has a longstanding ban on women attending big sporting events alongside male fans.

She was taken into custody that day and released several hours later but in late June 2015, when she went to collect her mobile phone, which had been confiscated after the protest, the authorities re-arrested her.

While in jail, Ghavami went on a hunger strike, refusing food and water, for several days in protest at her detention and the judicial uncertainty surrounding her case. Campaigners including her brother, Iman, and mother, Susan Moshtaghian, highlighted her ordeal and pleaded with the authorities for her release. Amnesty International also described her as a prisoner of conscience, arrested solely for participating in a peaceful protest.

Ghavami’s detention was an embarrassment for President Hassan Rouhani and his moderate administration, which has taken a softer stance on social freedoms. Rouhani supports the principle of women being allowed to watch games in stadiums, but says that a change of policy is not at his discretion.
Insolent Politics.

Sources: Voice Of America, TheGuardian.Com 

Dr. Larycia Hawkins leaving Wheaton College after Islam-Christianity comments

A U.S. college professor who wore a headscarf in solidarity with Muslims is leaving the Christian college where she taught, after a dispute over comments she made linking Islam and Christianity. Wheaton College is where she attended and associate professor, Larycia Hawkins, issued a joint statement saying they are parting ways after reaching a "confidential agreement."
I wonder why the meeting was so confidential?

Dr. Larycia Hawkins wearing a hijab in solidarity of
Muslims worldwide because we "worship the same God".

The Statement said both parties had a commitment to respectful dialogue with people of other faiths or no faith and those who are marginalized because of their religious beliefs.

Really? In my humble opinion it sure sounds like Dr. Larycia was trying to bring people of different religious beliefs together to make for a better overall American experience of freedom of religion. What's wrong with trying to make the the world a better place to live.

This midwestern college in the state of Illinois called Wheaton College, is taking steps to fire a professor who linked Islam to Christianity. In a December 10 Facebook posting, Hawkins, who is a Christian, said she stands in solidarity with Muslims because they "are people of the book" and "worship the same God." The administration at Wheaton College, which is a Christian evangelical university, has recommended associate professor, Larycia Hawkins, lose her tenured-track position.

There is a very informative blog called, The Gospel Coalition, that goes in depth about the whole debate about Christians and Muslims worshiping the same God according to the bible.

Wheaton College says Hawkins' comments violate the school's 'Statement of Faith' which all faculty members are obligated to sign. Hawkins also announced she would wear the hijab (Muslim head covering) in an effort to show solidarity for Muslims who have been under scrutiny since mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, California.

Not only is Larycia making a stand for solidarity with Muslims worldwide, she is also a pioneer and is a part of history in the making. Miss Hawkins broke down stereotypical barriers by being the first female African-American tenured professor at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Wow, not that is saying something for someone who is using her platform to do the work of Jesus Christ.

Wheaton College Provost, Stanton Jones, issued an apology to Dr. Larycia Hawkins — the professor who had been put on administrative leave following comments that Christians and Muslims worship the 'same God' — the college and Hawkins released a joint statement announcing that they will part ways. - Read the statement.
Insolent Politics

Insolent Politics
Sources: Voice of America,  Urban Christian News