Highbrow Magazine - blacks https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/blacks en From the Fringe to the Mainstream: The Disturbing Rise of American White Supremacy https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11038-fringe-mainstream-disturbing-rise-american-white-supremacy <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 11/16/2020 - 19:03</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1whitesupremacy_cool_revolution-creative_commons.jpg?itok=HSX_SptO"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1whitesupremacy_cool_revolution-creative_commons.jpg?itok=HSX_SptO" width="480" height="318" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>On April 8, 1988, a jury in federal court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/04/08/13-white-supremacists-acquitted-in-arkansas-murder-and-sedition-trial/21c30cbe-c120-40ac-8fec-33420d1b0d2e/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">acquitted</a> 13 white supremacists who had been charged with conspiring to overthrow the government and murder a federal judge and a federal agent. Jurors heard testimony about how the defendants allegedly planned to use gallons of sodium cyanide to poison the water supply of major U.S. cities, illegally acquired military-grade weapons, and their plans to form an all-white nation in the Pacific Northwest. After a two-month trial, the all-white jury acquitted all defendants of all charges.</p> <p> </p> <p>One of those acquitted was Robert E. Miles, a former Grand Dragon of the Michigan Ku Klux Klan and still considered one of the most influential American white supremacists (more on his Christian Identity movement later). When asked how the Fort Smith trial would affect the white supremacist movement, “Pastor” Miles <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/08/us/13-supremacists-are-not-guilty-of-conspiracies.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">replied</a>: “Who knows? What movement? What’s left of it after this?” </p> <p> </p> <p>The question is important, more so than the response, which of course turned out to be unprophetic babble. This is because, especially now and possibly on account of the Fort Smith trial, we often fail to see white supremacy as a social movement. One in which leaders emerge, groups are formed and disbanded, different ideas are floated, carried out, and discarded; much the way any modern social movements work. Instead, we tend to think of white supremacists as single actors, as “lone wolves” who maybe read the wrong literature once or were bullied just a bit too much or rejected by a woman just one too many times who then go on to commit heinous acts of domestic terrorism and hate crimes. But the truth is that white supremacy is just an umbrella term for the many different sects and groups that subscribe to some theory or concept of race supremacy, and for some of them, the term doesn’t even apply within the semantics of their beliefs. </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2whitesupremacy_anokarina_-_wikimedia.jpg" style="height:570px; width:570px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>When we think of white supremacy in America, we tend to visualize the obvious conceptualization of the term. Something like the Ku Klux Klan with their immediately recognizable robes and pointy hats and their fantasy-themed titles of dragons and wizards and orcs. The Klan first came into the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/reconstruction/ku-klux-klan" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">scene</a> during the Reconstruction era, as a direct response to the results of the American Civil War and the emancipation of Black slaves. Back then, it was confined entirely in the South and it was found mostly in rural areas.</p> <p> </p> <p>From then on, the Klan has had a steady presence in the American landscape, although its influence seems to ebb and flow depending on the needs of the time. The Klan virtually disbanded shortly after Reconstruction, but reemerged in the 1920s immediately following the First World War. This time, its national presence was in response to industrialization, urbanization, and the first huge wave of immigration to the U.S. that resulted from World War I. While African-Americans were always their source of affliction, the Klan now also targeted immigrants, Jews, and Catholics who migrated to the U.S. The 1920s Klan were mostly men who basically sought to terrorize anyone who wasn’t white and Protestant. The famous <a href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b39318/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">pictures</a> of Klansmen freely parading through Washington DC are from this era, as the Klan enjoyed widespread national support and political clout. <em>Birth of a Nation</em> was a hugely popular <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-worst-thing-about-birth-of-a-nation-is-how-good-it-is" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">film</a> that was sympathetic to the Klan that even had a private screening in the White House.</p> <p> </p> <p>These comings and goings of the Klan reflect some of the most basic ways in which America deals with white supremacy, in that the Klan only popped up when it thought the country needed saving. In fact, <a href="http://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/cunningham/owens_et_al_social_problems_2015.pdf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">analyses</a> have shown that most Klan chapters emerged in areas where police activity did not enforce Jim Crow laws; in other words, the Klan did not go where it was simply not needed because the government was already fulfilling its goals by enacting and enforcing racist laws. This, along with anti-Klan protests and campaigns launched by social organizations and Catholic and Jewish congregations, are some significant reasons that the Klan practically disappeared in the late 1920s. They would remerge again in the 1960s to fight against the Civil Rights Movements that was overtaking the nation. And it seems they are having another renaissance now during these modern times of social unrest and fierce civil activism. </p> <p> </p> <p>And in many ways, the Klan and its origins offer us a study on the most visceral ideologies of American white supremacy: an irrational hatred of non-whites (particularly Blacks), and a deep-rooted desire to return to and maintain the social hierarchy of the Antebellum South and keep Blacks subjugated. For the Klan, there was no literature to be inspired by besides some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/08/the-preacher-who-used-christianity-to-revive-the-ku-klux-klan/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Biblical</a> passages specifically selected and contextually twisted to fit its narrative; no (unfounded and disproved) theories of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/column-the-false-racist-theory-of-eugenics-once-ruled-science-lets-never-let-that-happen-again" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">eugenics</a> to base their ideologies on; and, at least in their genesis and not as one of their founding principles, no fear of the “others” that were coming to take jobs away from hardworking white Americans. Their raison d’etre, in essence, was that they missed a time when white men could make money off unpaid labor and rape women of color with impunity.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3whitesupremacy_shawn_breen-creative_commons.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>But of course, white supremacy goes beyond your local Klan chapter. And perhaps because the KKK is a distinctively American faction, it may be easy to dismiss it as sort of a fool’s white supremacy group; dangerous and violent to be sure, but disorganized, underfunded, plagued by endless in-fighting, and with silly-looking uniforms. When in truth, many members of the Klan committed some of the best known acts of domestic terrorism and figure in many historical events of the nation, some with worldwide reach.</p> <p> </p> <p>We have several examples of this far-reaching influence from the defendants of the Fort Smith trial alone. <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-lane" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">David Lane</a>, for example, became an iconic figure in the global white supremacy movement after he penned what is perhaps the best-known slogan of their crusade, commonly known as the “<a href="https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/14-words" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">14 Words</a>.” <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/jewish-center-shootings/jewish-site-killings-death-sentence-white-supremacist-frazier-glenn-miller-n461071" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Frazier Glenn Miller Jr.</a>, who was a key witness of the prosecution during the trial, had previously founded the White Patriots Party, ran for governor of North Carolina (he placed third in the primaries) where he also started the state’s KKK group, and would later go on to murder three people in the Overland Park Jewish Community Center shootings in Kansas; he was 73 years old by then and accidentally ended up killing three Christians when his intended targets had been Jews.</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/08/18/Former-KKK-leader-Robert-Miles-dead-at-67/7854714110400/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Robert Miles</a> himself had run George Wallace’s Michigan campaign for presidency in 1968 (yes, <em>that</em> George Wallace), and after the trial would go on to found The Mountain Church of Jesus Christ the Savior, a site of numerous cross-burning events that preached, among other things, <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-bloody-history-of-americas-christian-identity-movement" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Christian Identity</a>, another form of white supremacy with some pretty unique ideologies, such as the belief that white people—specifically of Caucasian descent—are the real Israelites favored by God in the Bible, and that only Aryans are capable of blushing (Christian Identity is pretty niche and its presence has been diminishing, and yet there are still at least 11 <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/christian-identity" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">active</a> Christian Identity groups in the U.S. alone).</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://www.thv11.com/article/news/its-been-35-years-since-a-white-supremacist-killed-an-arkansas-state-trooper/91-7c3bb432-94b3-4875-9c26-ce1da76e266e" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Richard Snell</a>, who also subscribed to the Christian Identity ideology and was already serving a life term in prison for the murder of two people (a black trooper and a store clerk he mistakenly thought was Jewish), would be executed the same day of the Oklahoma City bombing -- which is almost certainly a coincidence and a bleak display of the universe’s sense of irony. Timothy McVeigh himself said that he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995 primarily as retaliation against the government for the Waco Siege that had taken place exactly two years prior. And apparently, Snell himself had <a href="https://extras.denverpost.com/bomb/report7.htm" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">planned</a> to bomb the building back in 1983 because he was angry at the IRS, which is almost certainly another coincidence, although McVeigh never did explain why he targeted specifically the Alfred P. Murrah building.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4whitesupremacy_microchip08-wikimedia.jpg" style="height:467px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>All of these seemingly random acts point to the fact that white supremacy isn’t just a “white is better” belief ingrained in misguided and stubborn opinions; but rather that white supremacy takes many forms. Some white supremacy groups are specifically anti-government; others don’t mind other ethnicities too much, but despise Jews; others are rooted in religious fanaticism (see Christian Identify above); while others still renounce the rigidity of religion (see Hitler and his ambivalent stance on Catholicism and religion in general).</p> <p> </p> <p>So we have groups like the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood, your classic white supremacist groups, if you may. There’s also the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20120625/racist-skinheads-understanding-threat" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Racist Skinheads</a>, which originated in Great Britain in the 1960s and 70s and are now a major facet of the movement worldwide (and this refers to the actual Racist Skinheads groups, not the whole subculture of skinheads in general, of course). There are the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21313021/trump-white-nationalism-supremacy-miller-bannon-immigration" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">White Nationalists</a>, who crusade for an all-white nation to promote the interests of whites. <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/white-separatism" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">White Separatists</a> are a cousin of the Nationalist, but they would be OK with either an all-white nation or just removing all non-whites from their midst somehow. Although many civil rights advocates consider these pretty much <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/27/facebook-says-it-will-now-block-white-nationalist-white-separatist-posts/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">indistinguishable</a>, there are rhetorical discrepancies that have landed even tech giants in hot water.</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/16/charlottesville-neo-nazis-vice-news-hbo" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Neo-Nazism</a>, a favored facet of white supremacy gaining more popularity around the world, reveres Adolf Hitler and tries to emulate the beliefs, economy, and social structures of the Third Reich wherever they happen to be in the world. Neo-Nazism is probably one of the easiest ideologies to fall into; the trappings, symbology, and mythology of the Third Reich can be easily alluring: a racist doctrine claiming the superiority of the white race with (debunked) scientific legitimacy, the extermination of the lesser that could lead to another Holocaust, and there are no more Jews. Because let’s remember that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Jews</a> are never white, they’re Semitic. And let’s also remember that if you think that it’s a weird contradictory dilemma that a tenet of white supremacy is that Jews have too much power and are secretly running the world for their own benefit and are definitely not white, but white is the actual master race, it’s because it is indeed a weird contradictory dilemma. Similar to how Christian Identify supporters somehow managed to keep Jews as resolutely Semitic and make themselves the actual descendants of the <em>Levantine</em> Israelites but still remain very white, thank you very much. It’s… just best if we don’t think too much about it. </p> <p> </p> <p>Then, of course, we have the modern <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/15/16144070/psychology-alt-right-unite-the-right" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">alt-right</a> movement, now part of mainstream political platforms, news organizations, and the everyday American design of life. Shrouded in the guise of civility, the alt-right rejects mainstream conservatism in favor of a more direct approach to racism and anti-semitism, but with mostly kind words and white boys clad in chinos and loafers. In short, they mostly demand that white people (read: white men) be given a fair share of the capitalist pie (read: the economic systems that already benefit white men), since minorities are becoming non-minorities and they see their way of life (read: systemic structures that mimic the Antebellum South) threatened.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5whitesupremacy.jpg" style="height:500px; width:300px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-10-22/right-wing-extremism-the-new-wave-of-global-terrorism" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Extremists</a> go even further and usually seek radical changes in the nature of government and social structures, although it is perhaps best to label this specifically as right-wing extremism, since not all extremist movements are bad (the abolitionist movement was extremist at the time in that it sought radical changes in the nature of government and social structures as well, after all). <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/patriot-front-preparing-after-trump" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">The Patriot Front</a> is a three-year-old extremist organization that has grown into one of the most active hate groups in the nation. Their leader is 20 years old, and they like bomber jackets and Mussolini.</p> <p> </p> <p>White supremacy comes in all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Cordelia Scaife</a>, a philanthropist and heiress to the Mellon banking and industrial fortune, funded a new translation of <em>Le Camp des Saints,</em> a French novel loved by white supremacists for its explicit racism and fictional tale of the fall of Western Civilization due to mass migration. Ms. Scaife was also an ardent environmental activist and funded early birth control initiatives, although that may have been largely to invest in population control as she became increasingly preoccupied with nativism and immigrants who “breed like hamsters.”</p> <p> </p> <p> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/books/stephen-miller-camp-saints.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Le Camp des Saints</em></a> has been praised by the likes of Marie Le Pen and Stephen Miller (yes, <em>that</em> Stephen Miller). Dr. William Luther Pierce, an American physicist educator, famously penned <em>The Turner Diaries</em> and founded and led the National Alliance until his death in 2002. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/how-the-turner-diaries-changed-white-nationalism/500039/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>The Turner Diaries</em></a> has become a seminal piece of literature for the white supremacy movement. It depicts a fictional overthrow of the American government that eventually leads to a race war in which all non-whites, including Jews, are exterminated. The novel has inspired numerous hate crimes and terrorist acts, including the Oklahoma bombing committed by Timothy McVeigh—he was found with pages from <em>The Turner Diaries </em>after the attack. “The Order,” the group at the center of the Fort Smith trial, is named after the political organization discussed in the novel and the book was the motivation for the murder of Jewish radio host Alan Berg orchestrated by The Order. The 1999 London nail bombing perpetrator was inspired by the book. The list goes on.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6whitesupremacy_paul_m._walsh-wikimedia.jpg" style="height:600px; width:393px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The idea of white supremacy, of course, isn’t new, and it’s likely going to stick around for a while. In fact, there has been a <a href="https://time.com/5555396/white-supremacist-attacks-rise-new-zealand/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">rise</a> in hate crimes, and who knows what kind of race wars 2021 has in store. But what it’s important to remember is that these hate crimes are not one-offs; they are not random acts of violence committed by a sad and angry lone wolf. They are part of huge, well-structured systems -- organizations with bylaws and specific sets of goals that are funded by multimillionaire philanthropists and your next door neighbor.</p> <p> </p> <p>White supremacists are not only out on the streets protesting with tiki torches, but are also in our governments driving and cementing policies. We do ourselves (and especially our BIPOC brothers and sisters) a disservice when we lose sight of that, and discard groups like the KKK as mostly misguided white people in funny clothes. This will be important especially as we crawl past the first term of the Trump presidency, whatever comes next.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Angelo Franco is</em> Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief features writer.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Cool Revolution (</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/ae39e390-9d8e-4a66-a69b-cbc463b8d11b" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Anokarina (</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_Supremacy_Is_Terrorism_(37368748214).jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Wikimedia</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Shawn Breen (</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/14e66511-a44f-4fd7-afe8-86a6a7debde8" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Creative Commons</em></a><em>)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Microchip08 (</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Children_with_Dr._Samuel_Green,_Ku_Klux_Klan_Grand_Dragon,_July_24,_1948.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Wikimedia</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Paul M. Walsh (</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KKK_Burn_resubmit.JPG" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Wikimedia</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/white-supremacy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">white supremacy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/white-supremacists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">white supremacists</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/neo-nazis-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">neo-nazis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/alt-right-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">alt-right</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hitler" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hitler</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/skinheads" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">skinheads</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/racists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">racists</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ku-klux-klan" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ku klux klan</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/charlottesville-rally" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">charlottesville rally</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/confederate-flag" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">confederate flag</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/right-wing-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the right wing</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jews" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jews</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/catholics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">catholics</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/white-race" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">white race</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Angelo Franco</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:03:05 +0000 tara 9982 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11038-fringe-mainstream-disturbing-rise-american-white-supremacy#comments Racial Bias and the Jury Selection Process https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9624-racial-bias-and-jury-selection-process <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/24/2018 - 13:22</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1jury_painting_by_john_mogran.jpg?itok=ZW01al2G"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1jury_painting_by_john_mogran.jpg?itok=ZW01al2G" width="480" height="272" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in The Louisiana Weekly. Read the rest <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/applying-racial-bias-during-jury-selection-process-is-considered-an-american-tradition/">here.</a></strong></p> <p> </p> <p>(NNPA Newswire) — “One of the most pernicious forms of racial discrimination and injustice in the United States criminal justice system is the racially-motivated use of prosecutorial peremptory challenges during the jury selection process,” said Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Black Americans and other people of color are systematically removed from juries by prosecutors because of their race and skin color. I define this prosecutorial behavior as judicial preemptory racism,” Chavis said.</p> <p> </p> <p>And, as one of the legendary Wilmington 10, Chavis has unique insight.</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1972, Chavis, who is an icon in the Civil Rights Movement, and nine others were falsely accused and convicted of arson in Wilmington, North Carolina, after a white-owned grocery store was set ablaze during race riots that followed a police officer’s fatal shooting of a Black teenager.</p> <p> </p> <p>Three of the state’s main witnesses later changed their testimony and, in 1980 — eight years after their sentencing — Chavis and the others were freed when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia threw out their convictions. In overturning the convictions, the Court noted that perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the original verdicts.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2jury.jpg" style="height:421px; width:514px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP, and the founder of the Moral Mondays Movement, told reporters that notes taken by former Pender County prosecutor Jay Stroud showed that he lied to a judge to get a mistrial so he could pick another jury in the Wilmington case – he then used a race-based strategy during jury selection.</p> <p> </p> <p>While the Wilmington 10 defendants were eventually exonerated, their case is just the exception and not the rule when it comes to addressing outcomes resulting from commonly practiced (and currently legal) race-based strategies associated with the use of peremptory challenges to strike jurors.</p> <p> </p> <p>“For an individual defendant or anyone going to trial, who is on their particular jury and who is their particular judge is more important than who is on the Supreme Court,” said Nora V. Demleitner, a Roy L. Steinheimer Jr. Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia.</p> <p> </p> <p>Demleitner’s colleague and law professor, Ronald Wright, recently wrote an opinion column headlined: “Yes, Jury Selection is as Racist as You Think, Now We Have Proof.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Sadly, this research finding confirms what we feared. The ‘jury of one’s peers’ isn’t real,” Demleitner told NNPA Newswire. “Racism, couched in neutral language, renders it impossible,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3jury.jpg" style="height:362px; width:544px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The only cure for replacing the veiled racism associated with “colorblind” [juror selection] practices is to remove the blinders, said Dr. Lorenzo Morris, a professor of political science at Howard University.</p> <p> </p> <p>“The assertion that there is no substantial differential racial impact in jury selection, however well-intended, has been largely discredited by research and diminished by detached observation,” said Dr. Lorenzo Morris, a professor of political science at Howard University. “Still,” he said, “the probable remedies are not easy to implement.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Removing the blinders effectively means becoming somewhat color-conscious in the evaluation of jury selection practices,” Morris said.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in The Louisiana Weekly. Read the rest <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/applying-racial-bias-during-jury-selection-process-is-considered-an-american-tradition/">here.</a></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This article originally published in the December 17, 2018 print edition of <em>The Louisiana Weekly</em> newspaper.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/benjamin-chavis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">benjamin chavis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jury-selection" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jury selection</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/racial-bias" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">racial bias</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/minorities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">minorities</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/courts" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">courts</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/judge-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">judge</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Stacy M. Brown</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 24 Dec 2018 18:22:26 +0000 tara 8442 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9624-racial-bias-and-jury-selection-process#comments Why Does the Temp Industry Shut Out Black Workers? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5882-why-does-temp-industry-shut-out-black-workers <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 06/22/2016 - 20:47</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1tempindustry.jpg?itok=ePp91ls5"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1tempindustry.jpg?itok=ePp91ls5" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From the <a href="http://chicagoreporter.com/growing-temp-industry-shuts-out-black-workers-exploits-latinos/">Chicago Reporter</a> and republished by our content partner New America Media: </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The code word for black workers caught Rosa Ceja by surprise.</p> <p> </p> <p>She was working for a temp agency in spring 2014, supervising workers at a big brick packaging plant northwest of Chicago. Crews of minimum-wage temp workers in hairnets boxed consumer products such as adult diapers and energy drinks in shifts around the clock.</p> <p> </p> <p>She knew the company wanted only men for some jobs and only women for others. And she knew those codes: “heavies” for men, “lights” for women.</p> <p> </p> <p>But when Ceja asked the recruiting office to send more heavies, she was told there were only “guapos” available. She was confused. “Guapo” means “good-looking” in Spanish. “I'm like, ‘Who cares if he's cute?’ ” Ceja remembers saying.</p> <p> </p> <p>Guapo, her fellow recruiters told her, meant a black worker. Black people didn’t want to work hard or get their hands dirty, they explained, so they were called the pretty ones. Latinos, the “feos” or ugly ones, were what the company wanted.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ceja said she checked with a packing company supervisor to make sure.</p> <p> </p> <p>“She said, ‘If you ever bring me a black guy, they’re automatically walking out,’ ” Ceja said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ceja had stumbled into the noxious muck of systemic discrimination in the rapidly growing temp industry. Around the country, temp agencies have used code words, symbols and gestures to illegally hire workers by sex, race and age. Whether filling orders for only white workers or only Latino ones, the tactics often hit black workers the hardest.</p> <p> </p> <p>As Ceja underwent a crash course in this hidden system, an advocacy group called the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative was devising a counteroffensive.</p> <p> </p> <p>The group eventually developed legislation to make temp agencies keep track of the race and gender of all job applicants.</p> <p> </p> <p>Illinois Senate Bill 47 would provide the proof, supporters said, that temp agencies were shutting out black workers in favor of Latinos they could more easily exploit. If it passed, it could mean a fair chance at a paycheck.</p> <p> </p> <p>Although a modest reform, it was likely the first of its kind. It put Illinois at the forefront of tackling a national problem in an increasingly important part of the workforce.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is the story of why SB 47 was born – and how it was killed.</p> <p> </p> <p>                   ♦ ♦ ♦</p> <p> </p> <p>Inside Illinois’ silvery-domed Capitol building in May 2015, Democratic Rep. Ken Dunkin was trying to guide the bill through a Labor and Commerce Committee hearing. It already had cruised through the state Senate the month before.</p> <p> </p> <p>But a powerful Latino lawmaker pushed back, and not gently. Staffing agencies were doing a great job employing his mostly Latino constituents, he said. The exchange got heated.</p> <p> </p> <p>“You’re hurting people in my community,” said Rep. Luis Arroyo, also a Democrat and a power player on Chicago’s Northwest Side. “You’re hurting the people that I’m putting to work in my community.”</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1blackemployment_1.jpg" style="height:365px; width:650px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Dunkin tried to say the bill, which would amend the Day and Temporary Labor Services Act, wasn’t just about boosting the job prospects of black workers. But Arroyo cut him off. If it wasn’t just about black workers, Arroyo argued, why weren’t any Latinos complaining about the situation?</p> <p> </p> <p>“I don't want folks to get this twisted,” Dunkin said.</p> <p> </p> <p>“It’s twisted already,” Arroyo shot back.</p> <p> </p> <p>Arroyo’s district is 61 percent Latino and 4 percent black. The Chicago district Dunkin held – and lost in the March primary – is just about the opposite, at 52 percent black and 4 percent Latino.</p> <p> </p> <p>The debate echoed the tensions between black and Latino laborers competing for minimum-wage jobs on the streets of Chicago.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s a dynamic playing out in cities across the country, as some employers choose Latinos for jobs black workers once often had. The clash is particularly sharp in Illinois, with one of the highest rates of black unemployment, far surpassing Latino joblessness.</p> <p> </p> <p>And that wasn’t the only problem.</p> <p> </p> <p>Dan Shomon, a lobbyist for an alliance of temp agencies, said the proposed law would create a paperwork nightmare costing businesses millions of dollars. Shomon is also executive director of the Staffing Services Association of Illinois, which he said represents 25 agencies that provide 250,000 jobs a year.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We oppose discrimination also,” said Shomon, a top aide to Barack Obama during his state and U.S. Senate careers until 2006. He didn’t mention that, just one week before, a board member of his association had signed an $800,000 settlement to resolve government findings of widespread discrimination at his company. Other association members also have been hit with bias claims.</p> <p> </p> <p>Shomon said the bill’s requirement to track the race and gender of job applicants wasn’t necessary: The federal government already collects that data, he told legislators. He had that wrong, but nobody caught the error. He repeated it a few times.</p> <p> </p> <p>After the SB 47 hearing, Shomon took Arroyo and another bill opponent to Saputo’s, an Italian restaurant popular with politicos, spending $45 on each of them, according to lobbyist expenditure records. Asked about this, Arroyo said free meals don’t buy votes in Springfield.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I would be a heavy, heavy individual if that was the case,” he said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Following another hearing on the bill a few days later, the lobbyist treated Arroyo to a $50 meal at Nick &amp; Nino’s, a “penthouse steakhouse” with 30th-floor views of the Capitol dome. By then, the bill effectively was dead.</p> <p> </p> <p>At the second hearing, Arroyo and another lawmaker had made Dunkin promise that he wouldn’t bring it up for a final vote unless the industry lobbyist approved it.</p> <p> </p> <p>And with that, a lobbyist who spread inaccurate information, representing companies that have faced serious allegations of discrimination, squelched what could have been a trailblazing reform.</p> <p> </p> <p>                            ♦ ♦ ♦</p> <p> </p> <p>SB 47 had grown out of a larger battle over hiring discrimination in the temp industry.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Chicago Workers’ Collaborative has been raising a ruckus for years as one of the nation’s only labor groups running a grassroots campaign to reform temp agency hiring practices. The regional office of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is among the most active in the country in suing over temp industry job bias. And a Chicago union organizer-turned-workers rights attorney has unleashed multiple class-action lawsuits against temp agencies on behalf of black workers, recently clinching a $1.5 million settlement.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2tempindustry.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The temp agency tactics aren’t lost on job seekers who show up at stark storefront recruiting offices before dawn. Some take buses across Chicago as early as 4 a.m. – not for a job they can count on, but for a chance to snag a shift making as little as $8.25 per hour.</p> <p> </p> <p>They sit next to each other with packed lunches, in rows of plastic chairs or wooden benches. They wait for hours to see whether they will get a spot on the vans that transport temp workers to various plastics manufacturers, food factories, printing plants and packaging facilities.</p> <p>For Derell Pruitt, it was bad enough watching Latino workers board the vans while black workers like him were left behind. The worst, he said, was one time last year when he actually did get sent out for a job. It was for a temp agency called Most Valuable Personnel, or MVP.</p> <p> </p> <p>As soon as the vanload of workers arrived at the job site, a packaging plant, Pruitt said a supervisor picked all the Latinos and sent back all the black workers. They weren’t needed, they were told.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I could not believe that they would not pick one black, not one,” said Pruitt, talking in a McDonald’s near his Waukegan home. “It was very bold and humiliating, too.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Rosa Ceja said the same thing happened on her watch. Back when she learned that black workers were “guapos” to be avoided, she was a dispatcher for MVP, working on-site at the same packaging plant.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Right now, if I think about it, it's really, really sad,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Another former dispatcher, Adriana Hernandez of Round Lake, has similar stories: “They would tell me, ‘Remember, the supervisor doesn’t want any older ladies, and she doesn’t want any black people.’ ” She provided a text message that she claimed showed the codes for men and women, an order for “10 lights and 4 heavys.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In response to the allegations, an attorney for MVP, Elliot Richardson, said, “We deny that we discriminate on any basis, including race or gender or for any other reasons whatsoever.”</p> <p> </p> <p>He declined to address specifics.</p> <p> </p> <p>“It’s not our desire to be litigating this in the media,” Richardson said. “We have directed our clients not to speak to the media about these pending matters.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The packaging plant, called Metropolitan Graphic Arts, or MGA, doesn’t hire by race, said its president, Greg Szymanski. If any workers were sent back, he said, it was because they didn’t want to do the job.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We’ll hire the United Nations, and we’ll look for good workers, period,” he said.</p> <p> </p> <p>But Szymanski acknowledged requesting male workers for certain jobs and women for others.</p> <p> </p> <p>“If it’s picking up very heavy things, men are stronger, sure,” he said. “We’ve been in this business, and we know that men do this job better and women do this job better.”</p> <p> </p> <p>MGA’s clients include a long list of name-brand companies that once scrolled across its website: Advil, Dove, Crest, Tide, Huggies, Tums, L’Oreal, Arm &amp; Hammer, Target, Starbucks, Walmart and Unilever.</p> <p> </p> <p>Pruitt is part of class-action lawsuits claiming that MVP discriminated against black workers and didn’t pay him for his time. MVP responded in court filings that Pruitt never worked for the company.</p> <p> </p> <p>Pruitt, 40, said he had to go to counseling for his rage – against Latinos.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3tempindustry.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>“I was starting to hate them,” he said. “I knew that I shouldn’t be thinking the way that I was thinking, but I was frustrated and angry.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Pruitt said he has gone from backing Obama to full-throated support for Donald Trump, citing the Republican presidential candidate’s combative stance on immigration.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I want to help build that wall,” he said of Trump’s plan to seal off the U.S. border with Mexico. “I want to help get rid of some of these people.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Racial preferences loom over recruiting offices around the country, lawsuits and interviews show.</p> <p> </p> <p>A trio of temp agencies in Tennessee, for example, systematically recruited Latinos at the expense of black workers, according to government lawsuits.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Whether it’s low-wage Hispanic workers or low-wage African American workers, each of them are trying to make a decent living, and they’re being pitted against each other,” said Faye Williams, regional attorney for the Memphis office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.</p> <p> </p> <p>This dynamic goes back to the 1990s, when global economic competition drove employers to seek a cheaper, more flexible workforce, said Virginia Tech sociology professor Barbara Ellen Smith.</p> <p> </p> <p>They found a solution in temp agencies, which allowed for quick and easy hiring and firing. And they found a willing workforce in a growing stream of Latino immigrants, desperate for work of any kind, she said.</p> <p> </p> <p>“In effect, employers were replacing black workers with Latino immigrant workers,” said Smith, who studied the phenomenon among warehouse workers in Memphis. “You’ve got a population that’s really kind of exploitable.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The ensuing conflict between black and Latino workers served employers’ interests, too: “It keeps people from organizing,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Overcoming that racial divide has been the ongoing struggle of the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative. The group, formed in 2000, traditionally advocated for Latino workers, campaigning against problems such as wage theft and sexual harassment. But a few years ago, its leaders reached out to black workers and discovered a reservoir of frustration and resentment.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Their view was those 10 Latinos … getting in that van are the reason I’m not going to work,” said Leone Bicchieri, the group’s executive director. “As opposed to, it’s the dispatcher following orders from someone higher up.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Black workers, he said, are more likely to complain about wage theft or workplace injuries than Latino workers, who might be worried about their immigration status or unsure of other options.</p> <p> </p> <p>Bicchieri’s wife emigrated from Mexico and worked for years as a temp. He’s trying to convince Latino workers it’s in their long-term interests to fight job discrimination that actually favors them.</p> <p> </p> <p>The group’s pitch is this: Black workers are losing jobs, and Latinos are losing their rights. Only united can they hold temp agencies accountable.</p> <p> </p> <p>Read the rest <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/tara/My%20Documents/From%20the%20Chicago%20Reporter%20and%20republished%20by%20our%20content%20partner%20New%20America%20Media">here</a>.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From the <a href="http://chicagoreporter.com/growing-temp-industry-shuts-out-black-workers-exploits-latinos/">Chicago Reporter</a> and republished by our content partner New America Media</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/unemployment" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">unemployment</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/temp-industries" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">temp industries</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/temp-agencies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">temp agencies</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/workers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">workers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrrimination</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/workplace-discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">workplace discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hispanics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Hispanics</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Will Evans</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Stacey Rupolo; Google Imges</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 23 Jun 2016 00:47:10 +0000 tara 7009 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5882-why-does-temp-industry-shut-out-black-workers#comments Human Rights Watch Lists Police Mistreatment of African-Americans as Violation https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5611-human-rights-watch-lists-police-mistreatment-african-americans-violation <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 02/21/2016 - 14:51</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1humanrightswatch.jpg?itok=8Y9fXG7T"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1humanrightswatch.jpg?itok=8Y9fXG7T" width="480" height="469" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_102895.shtml">The Final Call</a> and republished by our content partner New America Media</strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>In its annual review, Human Rights Watch ranked police mistreatment of Blacks in America among human rights crises occurring across the globe.</p> <p> </p> <p>In “World Report 2016: Events of 2015,” experts criticize U.S. police practices and become yet another international body bringing the plight of Blacks in America onto the international stage.</p> <p> </p> <p>Once again, high-profile police killings of unarmed African Americans gained media attention in 2015, including the deaths of Freddy Gray in Baltimore and Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina,” the report said.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>The Justice Or Else! Gathering in Washington, D.C. on October 2015 drew cross-generational, cross-cultural groups to the Nation’s Capital demanding equal treatment for Blacks, Indigenous communities and others.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>“The federal government does not maintain a full count of the number of people killed by police each year. The Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed in 2015 that it tracks only 35 to 50 percent of arrest-related deaths on an annual basis. A new federal law incentivizes the collection of data regarding deaths in police custody, but does not require states to provide that data and so fails to ensure reliable data on people killed by police,” it continued.</p> <p> </p> <p>The document focused on harsh sentencing, racial disparities in criminal justice, drug reform, police reform, prison and jail conditions, poverty and criminal justice, and youth in the criminal justice system. It also tackled the rights of noncitizens, labor rights, right to health, rights of people with disabilities, women’s and girls’ rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, national security, and foreign policy.</p> <p> </p> <p>Last May, it further noted, President Barack Obama’s Law Enforcement Equipment Working Group released recommendations to better regulate and restrict the transfer of Defense Department equipment to local law enforcement.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ferguson, Missouri was a focal point of protests against police misconduct and discrimination especially after the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. by a White police officer.</p> <p> </p> <p>Human Rights Watch criticism of police brutality comes on the heels of a recommendation of reparations for Blacks in America by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We appreciate the work of Human Rights Watch and their solidarity, but on this issue, it has been addressed by the U.N. and will be addressed in September, and we want folks to just know that it’s the work of the people at the bottom, the grassroots community, the people directly impacted, and the Justice Or Else LOC! (Local Organizing Committee) that has brought this to the forefront of the U.N.,” stated Willie “J.R.” Fleming, longtime activist and member of the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign and the Chicago Justice Or Else! LOC.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We support the efforts of Human Rights Watch, but we don’t want folks trying to jump in and take credit for the work that Blacks folks have done. That’s the danger of people releasing counter reports after the U.N. left, because history can be easily miswritten,” the activist argued passionately.</p> <p> </p> <p>Fleming further said while grassroots activists applaud the efforts of groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, it is important to note that within these institutions are challenges around White supremacy and racial discrimination that must be addressed, not just by the police, but by some of the so-called human rights institutions.</p> <p> </p> <p>Blacks speak for themselves, Fleming said, and they want the U.N. to do more, but he acknowledged the world organization’s reparations recommendation was one of the greatest forums to hold America accountable and quite a bold move.</p> <p> </p> <p>“We want to keep the focus on the grassroots groups who brought the U.N. here, who got the U.N. to make a recommendation of reparations for not just the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, but the continued acts of genocide that happens at the hands of police, politicians, and policy,” Fleming said.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Human Rights Watch report, as well as the United Nations group’s decision on reparations, expose what’s happening in America to a world view, said Nation of Islam student Minister Jeffrey Muhammad of Mosque Maryam and the Chicago LOC.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, what is also important is the people’s display that they get it, or are starting to show it, that after that fails, they will see that they do not have any other options.</p> <p>“The enemy is not going to change unless he is forced to change,” Min. Muhammad said. “The Minister (Louis Farrakhan) said a long time ago that as time goes by, we will be able to see the devil more clearly. That Allah (God) would make him manifest so that his work will have to become worse, because our people did not grasp that we had an enemy.”</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3ferguson_5.jpg" style="height:346px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Min. Muhammad added, “What we are seeing in Chicago, those that are staunch civil rights activists, they are having the conversation now, we need to do something for ourselves. We need to separate. We need a land of our own, because they are realizing, especially in Chicago, police officers can kill us, nothing is going to happen. We can march, protest, picket, boycott and they are still shooting us. That leaves us with very little options. Now (Black activists) are coming to that conclusion on their own,” Min. Muhammad continued.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I think it’s essential to bring the plight of African Americans and police brutality in the U.S. to a world stage because it’s a history and systemic problem that has plagued African Americans since we were brought on ships against our will as slaves,” said Attorney Nicole Lee, human rights lawyer and immediate past president of TransAfrica, the Black lobby for Africa and the Caribbean.</p> <p> </p> <p>Atty. Lee said it is essential also because the United States has had such an impact on the rest of the world in terms of militarism, economics, and policing that where it is wrong, there must be a recognition and an acknowledgement so that other marginalized people are not so easily violated, and that despots do not just merely follow suit.</p> <p> </p> <p>In addition, she said, it is important when activists step out and demand their full rights.</p> <p> </p> <p> “I think it’s been difficult for some human rights organizations to be able to accept the fact that the ongoing treatment of African Americans falls within violations of human rights, and I do think it’s been incumbent upon local solidarity groups to continue to pressure to make sure that African Americans are recognized,” Atty. Lee said.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, she noted, it’s not uncommon in other places and among other people, such as “Afro Columbians, the people’s landless movements, and indigenous struggles around the globe” for those who are oppressed to seriously advocate for human rights protections.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I think that as more African Americans recognize that they are in an international human rights struggle, they will find that there are many peoples around the globe that will agree and support us,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_102895.shtml">The Final Call</a> and republished by our content partner New America Media</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/human-rights-watch" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Human Rights Watch</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/freddie-gray" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">freddie gray</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/michael-brown" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">michael brown</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/civil-rights" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">civil rights</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/police-brutality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">police brutality</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Charlene Muhammad</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 21 Feb 2016 19:51:40 +0000 tara 6669 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5611-human-rights-watch-lists-police-mistreatment-african-americans-violation#comments Hillary Clinton Has African-American Support, But Can She Keep It? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5583-hillary-clinton-has-african-american-support-can-she-keep-it <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 01/31/2016 - 15:18</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/3hillary_3.jpg?itok=fWQtX3bc"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/3hillary_3.jpg?itok=fWQtX3bc" width="480" height="329" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2016/01/she_has_black_support_but_can_she_keep_it_where_hillary_clinton_stands_on.html">The Root</a> and republished by our content partner New America Media</strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>Black people turned out in droves to usher in the Obama era. Can Hillary Clinton ignite a similar passion? Yes, Clinton has a long history of supporting issues that matter to African-Americans, but a younger generation of black activists is much more confrontational in demanding her commitment.</p> <p> </p> <p>In our Meet the Candidates series, we asked the leading candidates of both parties about their policy proposals on issues that are important to our community. Previously we examined Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Now we take a look at Clinton.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Raising Incomes</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>With the recession now in the rearview mirror, black people want to be part of the nation’s economic recovery. Hillary Clinton proposes a menu of solutions to raise incomes for struggling families. They range from tax cuts for child care to encouraging corporations to share their rising profits with workers.</p> <p> </p> <p>In an interview with The Root, Clinton’s senior policy adviser, Maya Harris, underscored the candidate’s plan to “unleash small-business growth.” Harris says black women, who represent the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, would benefit.</p> <p> </p> <p>Clinton, who wants to be “a small-business president,” is calling for an expansion of capital and markets, as well as tax relief and simplification for small-business owners.</p> <p> </p> <p>For those on the bottom rung of the income ladder, Clinton declares that they are long overdue for a raise. Clinton supports the Fight for 15 campaign, but unlike some Democrats, she would cap the federal minimum wage at $12 an hour and leave it to local lawmakers to decide if their economy could support anything higher.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>College Affordability</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Obtaining a higher education has long been the pathway from poverty to the middle class. But a college education doesn’t come cheap.</p> <p> </p> <p>Over the past decade, black families have taken on more student-loan debt than white families, according to the Urban Institute. In 2013, the think tank says, 42 percent of blacks had student-loan debt, compared with 28 percent of whites.</p> <p> </p> <p>The centerpiece of Clinton’s higher education proposal is her College Compact. Her goal is to create a system in which students do not have to borrow money for tuition, books and fees to attend a four-year public college in their state. She also proposes free tuition at community colleges. Her plan would address current and future college debt, as well as focus specifically on historically black colleges.</p> <p> </p> <p>Students would work 10 hours per week as part of their family’s “affordable and realistic contribution.” At the same time, Clinton would create a federal-state partnership and require more school accountability. The price tag is an estimated $350 billion over 10 years.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Healthcare</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Heathcare remains a hot button issue in the election, despite President Barack Obama’s efforts to reform the system. African-Americans have been among the most ardent supporters of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Yet they are less likely to benefit from it than other racial groups.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Hill explains that blacks live disproportionately under Republican-dominated state legislatures, which refuse to adopt Affordable Care Act rules that allow more low-income families to qualify for Medicaid. Consequently, roughly 1.4 million black people earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private coverage.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Democratic front-runner, a longtime champion of healthcare reform, plans to fix the “glitches” in Obamacare. She wants to build on what Obama has accomplished. Clinton’s focus would include lowering out-of-pocket costs and trying to prevent excessive premium increases, while lowering healthcare spending.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Gun Control</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Another recurring issue is gun control, which painfully struck home when a white supremacist gunned down nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.</p> <p> </p> <p>African-Americans have long supported gun control legislation—and they still do—even as some research observes a shift in the opposite direction. Clinton touts her record of battling the gun lobby as New York’s senator. If elected president, she promises to continue those efforts, which include closing the so-called Charleston loophole that allowed Dylann Roof, the man charged with the church massacre, to purchase a firearm despite his pending felony charge for drug possession.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Criminal-Justice Reform</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Another thorny issue is criminal-justice reform. Many African-American families are quite familiar with the problems associated with our system of mass incarceration and its shocking racial disparities.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4hillary_3.jpg" style="height:416px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Clinton has a list of remedies that includes reforming mandatory-minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenders and ending the privatization of prisons.</p> <p> </p> <p>But her critics say she lacks credibility on this issue. They tie her to President Bill Clinton’s “get tough on crime” policies, which resulted in many of today’s disparities.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Black Lives Matter</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Earlier this year, a small group of Black Lives Matter leaders confronted the presidential hopeful at a campaign stop in New Hampshire. During the encounter, captured on video, Julius Jones told Clinton that she and the former president are partially responsible for the mass incarceration of black people. At another stop in Atlanta, Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted her rally.</p> <p> </p> <p>To those who doubt Clinton’s passion for criminal-justice reform, the campaign points to “what she has actually demonstrated” throughout her public life.</p> <p> </p> <p>“It’s important to focus on what she has done as a legislator,” Harris says. “As a senator, she championed a ban on racial profiling. And it’s no coincidence that her first speech was on reforming the criminal-justice system.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Voting Rights</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Clinton also wants to defend voting rights. Advocates warn that this fundamental right to participate in our democracy is under attack in several states that have enacted various barriers to voting, ranging from requiring photo IDs to limiting early voting.</p> <p> </p> <p>As president, Clinton would support legislation to “fix the damage done to the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Repairing the VRA is the minimum thing to do,” Harris says. “She has an agenda that goes further to expand access.” Clinton’s voting-rights agenda includes automatic voter registration and a range of early-voting options.</p> <p> </p> <p>Black voters are most familiar with Clinton out of all the candidates in the race. In fact, her 80 percent favorability rating in the black community is astronomical compared with her competitors.</p> <p> </p> <p>After acknowledging the numbers, Harris says, “We’re not taking anything for granted.”</p> <p> </p> <p>While Clinton’s favorability lead is significant, Obama won the votes of 93 percent of blacks, who turned out in percentages that outnumbered whites. And according to some estimates, it will take similar numbers of black voters for Democrats to hold on to the White House.</p> <p>Despite the widespread support of African Americans, the campaign faces the challenge of energizing black voters to turn out in the historic numbers that they did for Obama.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Reparations</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Clinton has avoided taking a definitive position on reparations. When asked at the Brown &amp; Black Forum, the former New York senator said that more investment is needed in neglected neighborhoods. She pointed to Congressional Black Caucus proposals that would direct federal funds to communities that have experienced “disinvestment or no investment.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2016/01/she_has_black_support_but_can_she_keep_it_where_hillary_clinton_stands_on.html">The Root</a> and republished by our content partner New America Media</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hillary-clinton" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Hillary Clinton</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voters" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voters</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/support-hillary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">support for hillary</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/2016-elections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">2016 elections</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-voters" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black voters</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Nigel Roberts</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 31 Jan 2016 20:18:44 +0000 tara 6627 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5583-hillary-clinton-has-african-american-support-can-she-keep-it#comments The New and (White) Face of Journalism Start-Ups https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3845-new-and-white-face-journalism-start-ups <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 11:21</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1startups.jpg?itok=EvI4E9SR"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1startups.jpg?itok=EvI4E9SR" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.theroot.com/index.html?wpisrc=logo">The Root</a> and reprinted by our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/03/the-fresh-new-and-very-white-world-of-startup-journalism.php">New America Media</a>: </strong></p> <p>It’s a fascinating and bizarre development to watch, an emerging clique of the world’s smartest, snarkiest and data-driven <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/03/19/what-data-driven-journalism-can-tell-us-about-culture-and-life/">geek-journalists</a> battling for domination as Masters of the Wonkverse. While it’s been happening for some time, recent elections and the constant cycle of fact-checked talking points have created a rather lucrative marketplace for these startup operations. For sure, many of us political junkies, prognosticators and poll-watchers find it exciting.</p> <p>Yet entering this new exciting space of journalism is like Spike Lee’s cantankerous Do the Right Thing character Buggin’ Out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbA1YOueC_A">walking into Sal’s Pizza Joint</a>: There are no brothers or sisters on the wall. Despite the unavoidable hyper-diverse culturally driven world we live in, the clear message being put out is that it’s a marketplace where black thinkers, writers and editors need not apply. </p> <p>What’s intriguing is that the new-school white cats seem just as trapped in black-and-white Twilight Zone episodes as their old-school parents. Through all the hype of Ezra Klein leaving <em>Washington Post’s</em> WonkBlog to find his value with Vox Media and the public salivation that’s taken place over the rebirth of polling Yoda Nate Silver’s <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/">FiveThirtyEight</a> (of which, I admit, I’ve always been a big fan since before it razed formulas at NYTimes.com), there hasn’t been any pop-culture quiz on why these new ventures insisted on being ultra-white. When Klein left <em>WashPo</em>, he took as many white dudes as he could ask; Silver is downright gangsta about it as he flashes the refreshed FiveThirtyEight.com like a renewed season of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B50MqwiwAvs">Entourage</a>.</p> <p>They aren’t the only ones. Online progressive incubator <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/">Think Progress</a>, famously pointing out conservative crimes against diversity, can’t seem to bring itself to hire an editor of color or three (because one should never be enough). Adventurous rebels of investigative journalism such as <a href="http://vice.com/">Vice</a> (a cable-online hybrid) and the insufferable Glenn Greenwald’s new <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff/">Intercept project</a> are, for the most, part white-male-led renegade hipster publications.</p> <p>Not out of the woods yet, but giving lip service in the right direction is former <em>New York Times</em> executive editor Bill Keller, a bit older school, whose <a href="http://www.themarshallproject.org/">Marshall Project </a>is examining criminal-justice trends. He told <a href="http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/2014/03/_4_media_startups_committed_to_diversity.html">Richard Prince</a> of Journal-isms that, given the subject matter, which affects minorities disproportionately, “diversity is a valuable asset.” We await the more-than-just-words-part with bated breath.</p> <p>Diversity has always been—and for a number of reasons still is—the china-crashing elephant in the room that few really want to talk about or address. Lack of black people in the mainstream newsroom is an ongoing phenomenon that most—if not all—outlets seem unwilling to fix. Even worse is the lack of black leadership in the newsroom. But the fact remains that most demographic segments, regardless of background, still rush to bigged-up brand-name institutions as their most reliable sources for news. That won’t and shouldn’t change if you’re a rapacious consumer of information. As a result, people of color should hold these vaunted publications’ collective feet to the fire.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2startups.jpg" /><br />  </p> <p>Thanks to the infinite digital galaxy, thought leaders and writers of color can simply circumvent racial foolishness and create their own space. We don’t have to ask them for a seat at the table anymore, right? And like Sal in Lee’s cinematic classic, “You get your own place, you can do what you want with it.” But, these are the sources we rely on as our daily information navigators. Plus: It’s not like black-run thought leadership is doing the same on that scale. Institutions from the National Newspaper Publishers Association or the Joint Center and even the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation could find funds for data-driven, nonprofit startup efforts just as robust as Pew Research, Brookings or New America Foundation.</p> <p>And even as the online space is infinite, black-owned commercial-news ventures are either too afraid or too vision-less to jump into creating similar Wonk-driven projects despite the abundance of talent. Others play it safe by spitting out routine rotations of trendy junk headlines and assume that black readers don’t have the appetite for or don’t understand a steady dose of polls, charts and infographics on major policy issues. No one wants to be the smart kid in class out of fear they’ll get jumped after school. </p> <p>Everyone mentioned here, of course, is rightfully getting called on it. The National Association of Black Journalists pitched <a href="http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/2014/03/_4_media_startups_committed_to_diversity.html">an open letter </a>to the startups above. BuzzFeed deputy editor-in-chief Shani Hilton (a sister in a sea of journalism whiteness) eloquently <a href="https://medium.com/p/e4843d6d014b">blames the issue</a> on networks and cultural signals failing to connect. Columbia University’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/12/journalism-startups-diversity-ezra-klein-nate-silver">Emily Bell slams</a> the startups on diversity, but focuses primarily on the lack of women in the newsroom—which, for better or for worse, begins to read more like a diatribe from an HBO <em>Girls</em> script than a manifesto for diversity fixes.</p> <p>But, the accusations and predictable mea culpas from The White Guys present a few complex issues that will (predictably) leave the problem unaddressed. First, when the larger conversation on diversity typically commences, it becomes code for “how do we fill slots for our nagging white female peers?” rather than how we truly make a newsroom more alive with varying degrees of thought. And that doesn’t just mean race or gender; it also means a concerted effort to seek perspectives outside social, academic, economic and neighborhood circles. It’s like the Supreme Court: Must all the judges be trained at Ivy League schools? </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3startups%28%20andragillespie.com%29.jpg" /></p> <p>Second: The current debate assumes these cats were simply tripping around in their own ignorance and didn’t know any better. Yet, in all seriousness, one can make the argument that as diverse as the present world is (and will continue to be), they should all know better. Maybe you could convincingly make that argument in 1954 or while happily chewing on Cracker Jacks with the fam while geeked out on <em>The Roy Rogers Show</em>. But, if they’re truly great collectors and purveyors of streaming data, they should have the tenacity and level of curiosity to have their fingers tapped into the obvious world around them.</p> <p>Understood: It’s like the high school lunchroom, where folks can’t help but gravitate to tables with familiar faces. But, that’s not an excuse. Black journalists, commentators and thought leaders—as active and pronounced as that community is—just don’t seem welcome when they should be. Yet, they’re out there, whether they are <a href="http://www.andragillespie.com/">Andra Gillespie, Jason Johnson, Cornel Belcher</a> or countless others who toil away on these topics as well (and sometimes even better) than the white guys do. Time to cut it out.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong><br /> <em>Charles D. Ellison is a veteran political strategist and frequent contributor to The Root. He is also Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune and chief political correspondent for Uptown magazine. Follow him on</em> <em><a href="https://twitter.com/charlesdellison">Twitter</a>.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.theroot.com/index.html?wpisrc=logo">The Root</a> and reprinted by our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/03/the-fresh-new-and-very-white-world-of-startup-journalism.php">New America Media</a>.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/start-ups" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">start ups</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ezra-klein" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ezra klein</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bill-keller" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">bill keller</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-york-times" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">New York Times</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/vox-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">vox media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/washington-post" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Washington Post</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/whites" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">whites</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-journalists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black journalists</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/white-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">white media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrimination</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Charles D. Ellison</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Vox Media, ThinkProgress, AndraGillespie.com</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 24 Mar 2014 15:21:06 +0000 tara 4477 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3845-new-and-white-face-journalism-start-ups#comments Why Decriminalizing Marijuana Will Help the Failing War on Drugs https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3707-why-decriminalizing-marijuana-will-help-failing-war-drugs <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 11:09</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediummarijuanaarticle%20%28NAM%29_3.jpg?itok=R7LJTEum"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediummarijuanaarticle%20%28NAM%29_3.jpg?itok=R7LJTEum" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/01/president-obama-casts-ugly-glare-on-race-tainted-drug-war.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>President Obama again cast an ugly glare on the race-tainted drug laws in a recent interview and in reports from the White House. He specifically fingerpointed marijuana. Virtually all medical professionals have repeatedly said that marijuana use is no more damaging than alcohol, and so did Obama. If anything, judging from the thousands of family breakups, the mountainous carnage from alcohol-related accidents and physical deaths from liquor addiction, marijuana use is far safer than alcohol. But marijuana, as with the wildly disparate racial hammering of minorities with cocaine drug busts, has also been yet another weapon in the ruthless, relentless and naked drug war on minorities, especially African Americans. The difference is that the gaping racial disparities in crack cocaine prosecutions and sentencing have gotten massive public attention, White House and legislative action to close the legal gap. Marijuana, by contrast, has flown far under the public and lawmaker’s radar scope.</p> <p> </p> <p>But the racial war that has been blatantly evident in the drug war is just as, if not more blatant, in who’s arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced for marijuana use and sale. Take two states, Minnesota and Iowa. Minorities and especially blacks make up a relatively tiny overall percentage of residents of these two states. Yet blacks were eight times more likely to be arrested than whites. An ACLU study released last June found that in nearly every county in the nation the arrest rate for marijuana possession among blacks was at least four times higher than that for whites. Even worse the big gaping disparities in arrest numbers for blacks and whites come at a time when public attitudes have radically softened on both personal and medicinal marijuana use. Many states and locales have drastically decriminalized marijuana possession, and two states have legalized its use, and other states are poised to vote on legalization. Even worse, the huge race tinged arrest numbers come at a time when the incidences of nearly every other type of crime has plummeted.</p> <p> </p> <p>The reasons aren’t hard to find. The near institution of open and covert stop and frisk laws that target minorities, incentives to pad arrest numbers to insure greater federal funding and to bolster the perceived crime-fighting stature of police agencies, and the ease and cheapness of focusing on low-level crimes are major reasons for the continued war on minorities for marijuana use.</p> <p> </p> <p>Then there are the public attitudes toward black and white drug offenders. The top-heavy drug use by young whites has never stirred any public outcry for mass arrests, prosecutions, and tough prison sentences for them, many of whom deal drugs that are directly linked to serious crime and violence.</p> <p> </p> <p>Whites unlucky enough to get popped for drug possession are treated with compassion, prayer sessions, expensive psychiatric counseling, treatment and rehab programs, and drug diversion programs. And they should be. But so should those blacks and other non-whites victimized by discriminatory drug laws.</p> <p> </p> <p>A frank admission that the laws are biased and unfair, and have not done much to combat the drug plague, would be an admission of failure. It could ignite a real soul-searching over whether all the billions of dollars that have been squandered in the failed and flawed drug war -- the lives ruined by it, and the families torn apart by the rigid and unequal enforcement of the laws -- has really accomplished anything.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumobamacolorlines_0.jpg" style="height:375px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>This might call into question why people use and abuse drugs in the first place -- and if it is really the government's business to turn the legal screws on some drug users while turning a blind eye to others?</p> <p> </p> <p>The greatest fallout from the nation's failed drug policy and that certainly includes racially skewed marijuana arrests is that it is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it further embeds the widespread notion that the drug problem is exclusively a black problem. This makes it easy for on-the-make politicians to grab votes, garner press attention, and balloon state prison budgets to jail more black offenders, while continuing to feed the illusion that we are winning the drug war. On the other, the easing up of marijuana arrests and prosecutions of whites permits much of the public and lawmakers to delude themselves that the nation has become much more prudent and enlightened in how it views the drug fight.</p> <p> </p> <p>In his interview Obama was blunt, "We should not be locking up kids or individuals for long stretches of jail time when those writing the laws have probably done the same thing.” Obama certainly could testify to that since he has frankly admitted his use of drugs in his youthful days. This frank admission and the realization that more prisons, the hiring and maintaining of waves of corrections officers, and the bloating state budgets in the process, not to mention political pandering is a lose-lose for the nation. The biggest loser of all with the nation’s disastrously failed and flawed drug war, is minorities and especially blacks. Marijuana is no different.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent MSNBC contributor. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/01/president-obama-casts-ugly-glare-on-race-tainted-drug-war.php">New America Media</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/marijuna" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">marijuna</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pot" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pot</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/smoking-pot" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">smoking pot</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/legalizing-marijuana" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">legalizing marijuana</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drug-wars" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">drug wars</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/war-drugs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">war on drugs</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama-administration" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama administration</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hard-drugs" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hard drugs</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/minorities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">minorities</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 05 Feb 2014 16:09:39 +0000 tara 4236 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3707-why-decriminalizing-marijuana-will-help-failing-war-drugs#comments Will the NAACP Ever Elect a Woman President? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3169-will-naacp-ever-elect-woman-president <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 11/06/2013 - 08:43</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumnaacp_0.jpg?itok=rVHG-JQL"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumnaacp_0.jpg?itok=rVHG-JQL" width="480" height="318" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> From our content partner, <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/11/is-the-room-at-the-top-of-civil-rights-organizations-for-men-only.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> In a petition circulated online, Change.org minces no words: “NAACP: Hire the First Woman President in the NAACP’s 104 year History.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Seventy percent of the respondents agreed it is time that NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) elect the first permanent woman president in its history.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The petition and the clamor for a woman to lead the organization came almost within moments after current NAACP President Ben Jealous announced he was stepping down at the end of the year. This is hardly the first time there’s been a clamor and an even louder criticism of the dearth of female leaders at the top of the nation’s major civil rights organizations.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Two things have marked the litany of civil rights organizations past and present. One is that throughout the history of the best-known major civil rights groups--the Urban League, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and of course the NAACP--no woman has occupied the top spot any of them.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The sole exception was in 2009, when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which in its declining years finally elected the first woman head, Bernice King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s daughter. But that breakthrough was short-lived when King could not reach agreement with the SCLC’s male-dominated board regarding the terms of her presidency.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The second major earmark of civil rights organizations has been the number of prominent women who played pivotal roles in the fight for justice and equality. They are well-known: Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Gloria Richardson, Dorothy Cotton, Septima Clark, Dorothy Height, to name a few. These women had to wage two fights. One was for civil rights and one was against the blatant sexism and male dominance among the rank and file and leadership in the civil rights organizations.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The men frequently denigrated and minimized women’s role and importance, or they pigeonholed them into so called women’s roles—typists, phone answerers, general gofers, and just plain flunkies for the men. In some cases, they sexually exploited and abused women.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The most blatant example of this was Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver’s frequent admonition that the only place for women in the movement was “prone.” This ignited a firestorm of criticism and condemnation from female Panther members and among women activists in various other civil rights organizations. Although Cleaver took much deserved heat for his insulting and outlandish digs at women, he reflected the quiet sentiment of far too many men that, aside from their views of women, their positions were some of the most advanced, forward thinking and progressive in their social concepts and activism.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The Achilles' Heel of the civil rights organizations remained the quiet and destructive sexism within their ranks. This history burst into public in the run-up to the 50th anniversary commemoration of the March on Washington this past August. A number of women took dead aim at the march’s 1963 organizers for what they considered the deliberate exclusion of women from a major role in the planning, organizing and deliverance of any of the keynote speeches at the historic event.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2naacp.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 634px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Those women didn’t stop with a nostalgic glancing, over-the-shoulder critique of the events 50 years ago. Instead, they openly wondered how much had really changed within the major civil rights organizations today.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Apart from the towering roles that women played in past civil rights battles as activists and organizers, radical women, such as Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis and Hamer showed by their courage and example that they could more than hold their own and even surpass most men, including men who were considered the movement leaders, in terms of vision, passion, energy and steel-like dedication to the fight for economic and social justice.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Yet despite the power of their leadership and example, they still had to struggle against marginalization by male leaders. In spite of their prominence and name recognition, they constantly bumped up against the intrinsic and galling reality that when it came to leadership and decision-making in organizations, the hard edge of traditional and ingrained male domination and female marginalization continued to be the order of the day.</p> <p>  </p> <p> While many applauded an Angela Davis and rallied to her defense, she was still seen by many men as a woman first, second and often last, and not as a black leader. Yet, just as in the past, there were powerful examples of women as activists and leaders in the civil rights movement, there are even more women today who are fully capable of being not only the visible face of a major civil rights organization, but one of its leading decision and policy makers as well.</p> <p>  </p> <p> NAACP has legions of women in local decision- and policy-making roles in their various chapters. Any one of them could step into the top presidential spot. There are also prominent women outside the organization that BlackAmericaweb.com named, who could assume the president’s mantle.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Among them are Stefanie James Brown, former NAACP youth and college director; Aisha Moodie-Mills, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Sherrilyn Ifill, president and counsel-director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Appointing any one of them to head the organization would signal that the NAACP has shattered the glass ceiling. It would send a powerful message that the organization regards the fight for gender equality and against sexism as being equally potent and compelling as the historic and continuing fight for racial justice and equality.</p> <p>  </p> <p> NAACP has a golden opportunity to open the door of its male-only room at the top to women. It’s an opportunity that it and no other civil rights organization purporting to call itself a champion of civil rights should blow.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/11/is-the-room-at-the-top-of-civil-rights-organizations-for-men-only.php">New America Media</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/naacp" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NAACP</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ben-jealous" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ben jealous</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/benjamin-jealous" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">benjamin jealous</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/president-naacp" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">president of the naacp</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/woman-president" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">woman president</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 06 Nov 2013 13:43:52 +0000 tara 3805 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3169-will-naacp-ever-elect-woman-president#comments Racism, Hate Crimes on Social-Networking Sites Target Obama, Minorities https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1432-racism-hate-crimes-social-networking-sites-target-obama-minorities <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 07/31/2012 - 16:38</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumDECObama_1.jpg?itok=QEZQUcwE"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumDECObama_1.jpg?itok=QEZQUcwE" width="480" height="329" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2012/07/anti-obama-hate-on-social-media-soars.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> The legion of websites, bloggers, talk show jocks, and the occasional GOP official that has teed off on President Obama and at times Michelle Obama with assorted borderline racist digs, taunts, and depictions have been relentless. The offensive remarks quickly evoke a storm of outrage, and the offender gets rebuked. This happens because they are public figures, and their comments are publicly aired. They fly high on the public’s radar scope.</p> <p>  </p> <p> But that’s not the case with the growing barrage of racist assaults on Obama and other minorities on social media sites. Baylor University researchers, for instance, recently tracked more than 20 Facebook page groups and users and found them jam-packed with racist venom aimed at Obama, blacks and other minorities. The growing number of groups that churn hate on social media sites are secure in the knowledge that they won’t be caught or called out on it.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The signal that Obama would trigger a titanic wave of race-baiting and stereotyping danger in cyberspace came the moment that he announced he would seek the presidency in February 2007. He had the dubious distinction of being the earliest presidential contender to be assigned Secret Service protection on the campaign trail. As the showdown with Republican presidential rival John McCain heated up in the general election in 2008, the flood of crank, crackpot, and screwball threats that promised murder and mayhem toward Obama continued to pour in. This prompted the Secret Service to tighten security and take even more elaborate measures to ensure his safety. As president, the threats against Obama have been nonstop.</p> <p>  </p> <p> But the first real tip that hate could also find a safe haven on social media sites was the infamous Facebook assassination poll in September 2009. The target was Obama. Hundreds of respondents dignified the question that asked: "Should Obama be killed?" by answering. If the poll hadn’t been quickly yanked, thousands more might have answered the bizarre and murderous question.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> In the nearly three years since then, dozens of hate groups have popped up on Facebook. They have several things in common. Their prime target is Obama. They let fly with the most grotesque, offensive, and rabid hate depictions of the president, blacks and other minorities. Thousands of respondents chime in with their own racial haranguing broadsides. They have defacto protection from Facebook, not because Facebook condones or even turns a blind eye to racism on its site and by its users. It has a very strict policy to snatch any group from the site that makes racial, gender, religious, or sexual orientation attacks against individuals or groups. But Facebook bases its existence and success on being a virtually, free and open social media platform.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2mediumfacebook.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 334px; " /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Facebook permits individuals and groups [to] poke fun, level ridicule, and toss jibes at any and everything under the guise of humor or satire. It’s the old free speech canard. Facebook’s extreme reluctance to inhibit the free expression of ideas and opinions no matter how many persons may be offended at the humor or satire provides virtual open license for groups and individuals to spew racial hate.</p> <p>  </p> <p> For example, in one posting Obama is depicted in hip-hop garb with a bucket of chicken. In another, a grinning Obama has a bandanna on his head and a mouth full of gold teeth with the caption “Going for the African-American vote.” The hate groups outwit the Facebook policy enforcers by avoiding use of the more blatant racial slurs and epithets. They use such neutral language as “Obama is a lousy president.” They know that this will stir an avalanche of comments, many of which will be laced with racial slurs and propagate racial stereotypes.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The social media hate groups also are adept at using innocuous key words and race-neutral titles to give the façade that their criticism of the White House has no hidden racial animus. Many innocent social media networkers stumble on the hate group pages and are appalled at what they see and read. But they are still exposed to the hate mongering and that insures a wider audience.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Hate groups have honed in on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms to influence and even recruit others to their ranks. As the closely contested 2012 presidential election heats up, more groups will skirt the social media censors and ratchet up their hate-filled vitriol on their sites. They’ll pawn it off as satire and poking fun at Obama, and minorities.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio: </strong></p> <p> <em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent political commentator on MSNBC and a weekly co-host of the </em>Al Sharpton Show<em> on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of </em>How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge<em>. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/">New America Media</a></p> <p>  </p> <p> <em><strong>Photos: New America Media</strong></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hate-crimes" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hate crimes</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/racism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">racism</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/president-obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">President Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/michelle-obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Michelle Obama</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/republicans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Republicans</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Democrats</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/minorities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">minorities</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:38:34 +0000 tara 1324 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1432-racism-hate-crimes-social-networking-sites-target-obama-minorities#comments