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

A protester predicted the Michael Brown verdict back in August 2014... WOW

This frustrated protestor gives his prediction of the verdict in the murder of an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown Jr. in front of the Ferguson police department back on August 30, 2014.


At :37, "I think they workin right now to try to let him get off." 

#AmeriCAN: A short film with an uncanny twist at the end that will make one think twice

This is a short film that has an unexpected and uncanny twist at the end that provokes a sense of desolation of a country divided on racial lines. #AmeriCAN is a short film and public service announcement that comes in response to events that have divided Amerikkka over racial lines. The intention of the message, "all lives matter," is to pull people together from both sides of the racial divide and  inspire the kind of empathy and mutual understanding necessary to promote meaningful discourse and domestic reconciliation. The goal is to bring all people together, without exeption to race, religion, gender or age and sends the message that all blood flows red.


Nate Parker - Director/Writer
James Lopez - Producer/Story by
Kay Madsen - Director of Photography
Valerie Bleth Sharp - Producer
Mo McRae - Producer/Actor
Hernany Perla - Producer

Featuring La La Anthony, Andre Royo, Affion Crockett, Brian White, Omar Benson Miller and David Franzoni.
Song by J. Cole - "Be Free".

Barack Obama impersonator

Some light-hearted fun to break the monotony. President Barack Obama impersonator, Reggie Brown, talks about how he transforms from a regular guy to the Commander in Chief and how he shocks crowds wherever he goes. When Reggie does not want to be noticed he puts on what he calls his "Clark Kent" glasses.

This guy impersonates Obama so good it’s scary but he is hilarious.

NYPD Arrested Black Teen for Buying $350 Belt

A young black man is suing both the NYPD and Barneys for wondering how in the world he could afford a $350 product, then harassing and arresting him. Trayon Christian, who was 18 at the time, bought a Ferragamo belt he'd been wanting from the department store after receiving a paycheck from his work-study job. "I wanted to go to Fifth Avenue, I knew exactly what I wanted," he told the Daily News. But on his way out, he was handcuffed. Two undercover detectives accused Christian of using a forged debit card after being alerted by the salesperson. Even after Christian showed identification, he was taken to the police station and held for two hours before being released with an apology.  Really?? This is what America has stooped to and become.

The video below shows just how this country of America is still divided strictly on the bases of race. Since when in the hell does a retail salesperson have the authority and audacity to call the police of an unsuspecting individual buying an expensive  article of clothing?

 

By the way, the female commentator, in my humble opinion, proved she is just as racist as the sales associate who called the police by trying to judge a young African American male about his decision to buy a belt for $350 at Barney’s. The young man worked legally for his money and can spend it anyway he chooses. Anyone who earns their wages legally can spend their own hard-earned money on whatever they want! That’s not the argument. I’m pretty sure the female commentator has spent well over $350 on a purse or a pair of high heel shoes or a dress or on some other article of clothing. Certain people always try to switch the argument around to something else when they are in the wrong. Insolent Politics.

Racism in this country of America has to be dealt with because the country has already fallen. Not fallen in a sense of war torn areas that are physically bombed and destroyed but in a sense that there are no more morals and values that the children can look up to and follow in a positive manner. The economy has crashed several times and the value of the dollar is steadily declining. 
We live in a country and a society where the criminal justice system treat groups of people differently based on race and punishes them unequally which has a negative impact in that same society.

In a recent article in the Huffington Post there was an article written by former Attorney General Eric Holder, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/17/eric-holder-racism-speech, which says that systemic subtle racism is much more damaging than public rants. “Racist rants are much less of a threat to equality than the more subtle, everyday racism of the criminal justice system,” Eric Holder said at a commencement speech at Morgan State University, a historically black college in Baltimore.

He goes on to further say, “For instance, in our criminal justice system, systemic and unwarranted racial disparities remain disturbingly common. One study released last year by the U.S. Sentencing Commission indicated that in recent years, African-American men have received sentences that are nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes. Another report showed that American Indians are often sentenced even more harshly. The Justice Department is examining these and other disparities as we speak and taking a variety of steps to ensure fair sentences that match the conduct at issue in individual cases. Like a growing chorus of lawmakers across the political spectrum, we recognize that disparate outcomes are not only shameful and unacceptable -- they impede our ability to see that justice is done. And they perpetuate cycles of poverty, crime, and incarceration that trap individuals, destroy communities and decimate minority neighborhoods.” Insolent Politics.

 

Sources: HuffingtonPost.com,  TYT Network, Associated Press