Michael Brown’s Mother and Grandma Brawl Over ‘Don’t Shoot’ T-Shirt Cash

Michael Brown Jr's mother, Leslie McSpadden, grandmother and auntie actually brawled on a street corner in Ferguson over “I Am Mike Brown” and “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” T-shirt sales, with Brown’s cousin having his skull fractured by a metal pipe. The brawl was captured by surveillance cameras.

I am Mike Brown T-shirts for sale

I was in a state of WTF when I came across this story. Some of you may have already known about this incident but for those who don't know.... well, it is a sad display of mental illness in the black community.

As FOX 2 reported:

(A)bout 8:15 pm in the parking lot of Red’s BBQ. It`s the corner of Canfield and West Florissant, just blocks from where Michael Brown was shot and killed….Police sources tell us Brown`s Grandmother, Pearlie Gordon, along with Brown`s Cousin Tony Petty, were selling t-shirts and other Michael Brown merchandise. A police report describes a car pulling up and several people getting out. One of those people, was reported to be Michael Brown`s Mom, Lesley McSpadden. A witness described McSpadden yelling ‘You can`t sell this s%$&” One of the relatives, who was selling, reportedly demanded McSpadden show a document proving she had a patent. Say what?


The police report says that`s when an unidentified person with McSpadden assaulted Petty so violently that it resulted in a 911 call. A witness tells Fox 2 that the weapon was a metal pipe or pole. The suspect reportedly struck Petty in the face. Medics then took him to Christian Northeast Hospital with a reported partial skull fracture. The witness said the assault suspect grabbed merchandise and a box of cash believed to contain about $1,400.

There is a song from 1973 called "For the Love of Money" by a group called The O'Jays that sums up this fiasco.
Insolent Politics
Source: Associated Press, Fox 2, Top Right News

African Dodger, a game also known as Hit the Nigger

It's no wonder why America is still divided on the issue of race. All throughout the 1800's and the first half of the 1900's there were blatant racist carnival games that highlighted and exploited white people's hostility toward blacks. White Americans made their aggression and violence seem normal and legitimate.

Games like The African Dodger, also known as Hit the Nigger Baby or Hit the Coon, which used actual human targets, were commonplace in local fairs, carnivals, and circuses. Sometimes a picture or model of an African American was used instead, but the message was clear -- unprovoked evil violent aggression toward blacks was the social norm.

1911 photo of racists people playing a disgraceful game at a carnival. 

In 1911, some carnivals ushered in a new game for the "progressive era" called the African Dip, the precursor to the dunk tank. The game was "arranged that every time a baseball hits the target a colored man, seated upon a bar, is thrown into a large pool of water. It's said to be lots of fun..." ("It's Called", 1911). This new game didn't entirely replace the African Dodger. Versions of the original African Dodger were still found in the 1950s. Some carnivals and fairs decided to use targets that resembled African Americans instead of using real people. Promoters sold entire family doll racks that were used as targets at Amusement parks (A. J. Smith Mfg. Co., 1914). The development of Amusement parks in permanent locations increased the popularity of the African Dip game because it was hard to travel with the African Dip dunk tank. Riverview Amusement park in Chicago Illinois, was well known for their popular African Dip attraction, which was a staple there until the late 1950s.

Fast forward to the 2000's and the police use black teenage boys and men as human moving targets.
Insolent Politics
Source:  Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorablilia

Widow of Eric Garner throws him under the bus on 'Meet the Press'

I don't know about you but these situations where Al Sharpton is always sitting in with the families of deceased loved ones from police brutality that lead to murder just don't seem to sit right with me or the general public anymore for that matter. The widow of Eric Garner, Mrs. Esaw Garner,  blasted New York City law enforcement Sunday morning, saying that her husband was "murdered unjustly."

But wait, she also said some very disturbing things as well such as, "I really don't feel like it's a black and white thing," Esaw Garner said on NBC's Meet the Press. "It wasn't like it was a shock ... They knew him by name."

Appearing with Rev. Al Sharpton, Mrs. Garner told Chuck Todd (the interviewer on Meet the Press) that she believes her husband's death was the culmination of prolonged harassment by police, adding that she fears for the safety of her children as well. "They harassed us," she claimed. "And I would just say, 'Eric, just keep walking. Don't say anything. Don't respond. You know? Don't give them a reason to do anything to you.'"  Why in the hell is Al Sharpton the ONLY one to E-E-EVER be the one to sit with family members in all the TV interviews and council them as well?


Garner said that she purchased candy so that her youngest son would not go out on Halloween, and warned her older son at college to not attend parties. "I'm so afraid of what could happen to them in the street by the police," she added.

My thing is this, why should Americans of a certain racial group be stark afraid to go out to the store or a party in the first place? That's why I disagree that America is the greatest country in the world. The greatest country in the world would not have citizens afraid for their lives when they simply leave their homes. Sounds like a society in Germany back in the early 1940's.

Patrick Lynch, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president, commented last week by saying that Eric Garner's death came as a result of a choice to resist arrest. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the City of New York is the largest labor union representing police officers of the New York City Police Department.

There is never any accountability. Police that claim that they have the right to bring you down forcefully and then later say, "It's resisting," even when the videotape shows it's not.
Insolent Politics
Sources: Associated Press, NBC News


 

Racial incidents at Oklahoma State University fuel Brown decision protests

Oklahoma State University students joined the nationwide protests from the grand jury decision not to indict a Ferguson, Missouri police officer in the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown Jr.

Some students wrote “OSU Wants Justice” with chalk on the sidewalks around the classroom building. That statement was later defaced and changed to “Brown Got Justice.” Other chalk writing defacing was made to read “Justice was Served” and “Should Have Obeyed the Law.”

The de-faced chalk inscription at OSU

The chalk revisions fueled racial tension at OSU that came to light in October when racial slurs were added to a photo of an African American organization on an Internet application called Unseen.

The OSU demonstrations came after the holiday weekend and Monday saw hundreds of protests across the nation. The Ferguson National Response Network listed approximately 30 “HANDS UP WALK OUT” events Monday at universities across the United States.

Tuesday, OSU students didn’t wait for university administrators to speak up. Instead, they used the peaceful protests to explore the issue of racism on the Stillwater campus.

Students and at least one faculty member, Isabel Alvarez-Sancho, were outraged by some of the comments, written around the Classroom Building.

Students quickly Tweeted about what had happened. Alvarez-Sancho, Ph.D. and Professor of Spanish at OSU, said she saw the racist graffiti on the sidewalk before her 9 a.m. class Tuesday. She immediately reported the incident to Student Life, which had the chalk washed off the sidewalk sometime between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.

As of Tuesday, no reports had been filed with OSU Police on the incidents.
Patterson, who said she plans to attend law school, said she wasn’t satisfied with OSU’s response to racist comments made on Unseen.

“We say we are ‘loyal and true’ here,” Patterson said. “But we have seen how that isn’t true. Tonight, we are starting a peaceful protest with a prayer.”

One protester, 18-year-old Jazzmine Banks from Fort Sill, drew
a body outline to symbolize Brown.

“It is important for us in the black community to come together and acknowledge that racism exists when people say it doesn’t,” she said. “It exists in our government and law enforcement and we are not alone in the struggle. We may not be able to change the verdict, but we can change how people think about it.”

Insolent Politics
Sources: Reuters, Stillwater Newspress

 

 

Arizona cop punches 15-year old girl in face as mother begs her to stop

An Arizona police officer punched a 15 year girl in the face knocking her down to the ground in Mesa Arizona Friday Dec. 5, 2014. A man and a woman caught the incident on camera from their car at a street corner where the incident occurred. The figures are in the distance, but the video clearly captures a struggle between the female officer and the girl, ending with the officer pinning the girl to the ground. The female officer continued to roughly subdue the girl even after the teen’s mother begged the female cop to stop saying that the girl is asthmatic and has emotional issues.



As teen's legs kicked and flailed, the girl told the officers she couldn’t breathe, screaming, “Stop!” over and over, but they continued to pin her against the pavement with force. In my observation of the video the girl had enough air in her lungs to continually scream at the top her lungs "I can't breathe" so she should not have used that statement in vain. The second officer said that everything his comrade did was according to police procedure and that if she was wanted  the officer “could have shot her dead.” Really? ...

The mother of the teen had actually called the police for help but this isn't the kind of help the mom was expecting. The teen was a runaway but that's no excuse for the "overkill" behavior by police. Creating further injury is not helping.

Police told ABC News 15 in Arizona that the girl had run away in the past, and that her mother had called the police asking for help after the girl got out of the mother’s car and walked away. Esteban Flores, with the Mesa Police Department, told the news outlet that “authorities tried three times to convince the girl to stop before a female officer reached for the girl’s arm.” According to the police, the girl then kicked the officer and “punched her in the face.” After that, the female officer — a 12-year veteran on the force, according to Esteban — made the arrest, “which involved physical force by the officer.”

Insolent Politics.
Sources: Thinkprogress.org , Rawstory.com ,

Key Interview Missing from Ferguson Documents

Along with the thousands of documents and transcripts of 24 witness interviews released after a grand jury decided not to indict a Ferguson police officer in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a police interview with a key witness was not provided.

It is clear what is going on here. People clearly lie to get themselves out of trouble and police officers and prosecutor's are no exception.  Prosecutor Bob McCulloch has not released transcripts on some 40 witness interviews, including the transcript of the two-hour interview by the FBI and a county police detective with Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson. If there was nothing to hide Bob McCulloch would release the transcripts of the 24 witness interviews. Mr. McCulloch was adamant about how all of the eye witnesses' accounts were conflicting and contradicting. So why not release the transcripts? McCulloch said he would release the full transcripts after the grand jury had reached its decision but clearly he lied and this isn't the first and last time that McCulloch will lie.


What about the release of the transcript of the 2-hour interview of Dorian Johnson? Again, something is wrong with this scenario. And anyone with common sense will know that it smells of police cover up.  CBS did a report on this story at stlouis.cbslocal.com

McCulloch’s office said the FBI requested that some things not be made public because of the ongoing federal investigation. The main issue in question is whether Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson violated the civil rights of Michael Brown. 

In spite of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch's promises to make all witness testimony in the Michael Brown shooting case public so he could show the process was fair and impartial, McCulloch's office now acknowledges that it kept some records secret at the behest of federal authorities who are still investigating the incident.

McCulloch's executive assistant, Ed Magee, said the office released everything it had when the case was closed, but had "turned over and relinquished control" of some FBI interviews conducted in connection with the shooting. Need I say more...
Insolent Politics

Sources: Associate Press, CBS, USA Today