47 year-old Helen Jones was having a bad day...and they killed her.
Commentary by BlackKos Editor JoanMar
Police reported that they killed two Black women in 2020: Breonna Taylor was one, Helen Jones was the other. Well, let’s rewrite that: Breonna Taylor and Helen Jones were the two Black women police admitted to killing in 2020. That clarification is important because members of our police force killed 38 women in 2020 — that's an average of three women per month. Twenty-five of those killed were white, two were Black, five were Hispanic, two were other “other,’ and four were “unknown.” Of course, Hispanic does not preclude Black people...or white people for that matter, and what the hell is “other” and “unknown”? I suggest that those two categories are about creative reporting. Year-to-date (2 ½ months), 12 women are already dead: 6 white, 1 Black, and 5 unknown. My spidey sense is telling me that the majority of those shoved under that mysterious “unknown” category is black...or at least women of color. As you can see, “unknown” is being killed at an alarming rate.
The murder of Helen Jones was deemed, in cops-speak, a "good kill." Unlike the outpouring of justifiable outrage for Breonna, who was murdered in her own home, there were no demonstrations on her behalf and no hashtags to memorialize her life or mourn her untimely demise. No calls for the arrest of the two cops who fired “about” six shots at her; no calls for justice for her. Like Breonna, Helen was an innocent woman. True, she was having a bad day...for which she paid with her life even though she hadn’t killed anyone. True, she had a gun. She lied about having that gun. She refused to comply with the cops' (arrogant, confusing, belittling, unnecessary) orders. In a sad imitation of a bad spaghetti western, she whipped out her gun and attempted to do a Clint Eastwood-like spin just before she was cut down. What were the poor cops to do? A third officer thought that a stun gun would be enough to do the trick; the two vigilante cops thought that she deserved to die for her impudence and so they took her out. And that was the end of her story.
Arizona is a permit-less carry or Constitutional Carry state. No permit is required to carry a concealed firearm if a person is 21 years of age or over. To open carry a person must be at least 18 years old. Arizona still maintains a "Shall Issue" policy for reciprocity purposes.
The police force as presently constituted poses an existential threat to women. And white sisters, I’m telling you, y’all better join the fight pronto. March is Women’s Month and we typically focus on women’s accomplishments during the allotted 31 days. I propose that we broaden the scope more than a little bit; that we focus on violence against women and specifically on police violence against women.
There’s not a lot of data on the police-involved deaths of Black women; no national registry exists. But The Washington Post has noted nearly 250 women, including 48 Black women, have been shot and killed by police since the newspaper began tracking police-involved shootings in 2015.
Between 2013 and 2021, the Phoenix Police Department (AZ) killed 127 people.
The officers made contact with the woman and tried to figure out whether she was armed. Cox said during their conversation, 47-year-old Helen Jones became non-compliant. The officers saw that she had something on her waistband and gave her verbal commands. Cox said she wouldn't comply and made suicidal statements. Cox said that's when the woman pointed a gun at the officers. The officers shot the woman. (my bold)
This is the 54th officer-involved shooting in Maricopa County this year.
The racist who murdered eight people in Atlanta this past Tuesday is alive and well as we speak. He suffered nary a scratch after his murderous rampage. The cops managed to take the racist mass murderer alive with the police spokesman going out of his way to create a sympathetic narrative for the poor boy. “He was just having a bad day.” What did Ms. Jones do to deserve the death sentence? She told the cops that she’d shot at someone who attempted to get in her vehicle. They made no attempt to find the offender, instead, they treated her as if she were the criminal and proceeded to subject her to a humiliating 13 minutes of aggression. They shone lights in her face, they instructed her to perform intricate, detailed physical maneuvers as they played the petty tyrants, this even as they knew or should have known that there was at least the possibility that she was in the throes of a psychotic episode. After all, they were the ones who reported that she’d made suicidal statements. (A video of the last minutes of the deadly encounter is out there but I’m choosing not to post it.)
The consensus seems to be that the taking out of the 47-year-old truck driver was a “good kill.” That she got what she deserved. I disagree. I vehemently disagree. With just a little sympathy, a touch of sophistication, a modicum of respect for human life, a fraction of commitment to the oath they took to serve and protect, Helen would be alive today. With just a tiny bit of the goodwill and loving-kindness Atlanta cops extended to a white mass murderer, Helen Jones would be alive today. She deserved better. Her life mattered.
We call your name, Helen Jones. Like your sister, Breonna, may you rest in power. Condolences to your loved ones.
The fight continues...
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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“When the pandemic emerged and the president began calling the virus ‘kung flu’ or ‘China virus,’ those who were aware of how race operates knew that we were about to experience a surge of racism that we haven’t seen in a while,” said Pastor Raymond Chang, founder and president of the Asian American Christian Collaborative, a faith-based group advocating for Asian American communities while also leading Black and Asian solidarity. “Racism against Asian Americans has always been a part of the fabric of our society. It just depends on whether it’s overt and violent, or subtle and kind of flies under the radar.”
What also isn’t new in times of anti-Asian sentiment is the focus on relationships between Black and Asian communities. Many of the attacks that have gained widespread attention have featured Black assailants, and have threatened to inflame tensions between Asian Americans and Black Americans. While Vox found no evidence that Black Americans are predominantly responsible for this rise in attacks, or that they are particularly hostile to Asian Americans relative to the rest of the population, the narrative of Black-Asian hostility is rooted in immigration and economic policies that have historically pitted these communities against one another.
In America, “what we need to realize is that there’s this timeless structure, in which there’s always one group on top and another at the bottom,” Scott Kurashige, professor and chair of comparative race and ethnic studies at Texas Christian University, told Vox. “Though there certainly is an unchanged structure in the sense that this country has had a white supremacist ruling class structure since the beginning, it’s not the same techniques of governance or the same ideology, and certainly not the same people.”
Ultimately, there is a failure to remember what got America to this place of racial hierarchies and lingering Black-Asian tensions: white supremacy. White supremacy is what created segregation, policing, and scarcity of resources in low-income neighborhoods, as well as the creation of the “model minority” myth — all of which has driven a wedge between Black and Asian communities. In fact, it is white Christian nationalism, more than any other ideology, that has shaped xenophobic and racist views around Covid-19, according to a recent study. And for Black and Asian American communities to move forward, it is important to remember the root cause and fight together against it.
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Soul City in North Carolina was designed to build Black wealth and address racial injustice. Then its opponents lined up. The New Republic: The Lost Plan for a Black Utopian Town
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In 1946, a young Black G.I. named Floyd McKissick stood amid the bombed-out rubble of Tourcoing in northern France. His unit was helping rebuild the city, and he wondered why Americans couldn’t embark on a similar task of rebuilding neighborhoods blighted by segregation at home. He would return to the United States only a few months later, but the announcement of U.S. aid to Europe under the Marshall Plan in 1948 got him thinking further. What if rebuilding involved not only bricks and mortar but also economic opportunity?
As Thomas Healy shows in his stirring new book, Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia, McKissick never forgot his experience in war-torn Europe. In 1969, he announced that he was building a new community dedicated to Black economic empowerment, located on the site of a former slave plantation in rural North Carolina. Soul City would be open to residents of all races but designed to help Black residents through a combination of cultural uplift, jobs, and egalitarian social policies. Far from a quixotic vision or separatist fantasy, Soul City attracted interest from across the political spectrum: McKissick secured $14 million in federal urban renewal funding to bankroll the project, thanks in part to his assiduous courting of the Nixon administration. Indeed, the question that lingers around Soul City is not why it failed, but how it came so close to becoming reality.
Floyd McKissick was no stranger to audacity. A native of Asheville, North Carolina, he made his name as an activist with the Congress for Racial Equality, a major civil rights organization that swung in an increasingly radical direction after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. But McKissick wasn’t content with direct action and community organizing. With his wartime memories in mind, he sought to create the conditions for Black prosperity by building new communities from scratch.
The time was ripe. McKissick pitched Soul City as the solution to a range of issues grouped under the heading of postwar “urban crisis.” By the late 1960s, conditions in the nation’s cities were reaching breaking point. The influx of dollars provided for federal urban renewal did little to stem either white flight to the suburbs (subsidized by federal mortgage programs) or the marginalization of Black communities in what would be deemed the “inner city.” Designed as a partial solution to urban ills, President Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 New Communities Act provided federal support for the establishment of new towns. While the federal government imagined these communities as white, McKissick saw an opening. Soul City would address urban deprivation by reversing decades of out-migration from the rural South. And it would embody the self-sufficiency prized by the new face of the civil rights movement—Black Power.
A highway sign on Route 1 points the way to Soul City. — GREG ALLIKAS/COURTESY OF HENRY HOLT AND CO
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New newsletter highlights Black community’s role in Miami’s founding. Miami Herald: The 44 Percent
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Before the high rises, before the blockbuster films, before the art scene, Miami was just a sprawling plot of land that needed to be incorporated.
In 1896, Florida State law required a minimum of 300 registered voters for a city’s incorporation. Miami had more than enough to fulfill the requirement — but not all were white men. Many, in fact, were Black workers employed by Henry Flagler to help clear the land for the Royal Palm Hotel.
Toiling in the fields, however, was far from some 162 Black men’s minds on July 28, 1896. Rather than report to work, they had received strict instructions to attend an incorporation meeting in the then-Miami business district. Their presence proved crucial: those 162 constituted 44 percent of the voters who established Miami. An African American by the name of A.C. Lightburn was also said to have given the most rousing speech in support of incorporation.
From the very beginning, Black people played a key role in Miami history. Without those 162 men, Miami’s reputation as an international paradise might never have taken flight.
“We made Miami,” said Dorothy Fields, the founder of The Black Archives. “Those first 50 years, without the Black laborers, we would not have had Miami moving forward and certainly not what we have now. Not enough credit is given to the laborers.”
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A conversation with Heather McGhee about the costs of America’s racial bargain. Vox: How zero-sum thinking about race hurts all Americans
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Black Americans are typically cast as the victims of racism. And indeed, they are victims of America’s long history of racial oppression.
But according to Heather McGhee, that fact can obscure an important truth: White Americans also pay a tremendous price for the country’s racial hierarchy — and many don’t even realize it. It’s a self-inflicted wound that will never heal unless Americans change the way they think about race and the national project.
McGhee is the former president of the think tank Demos and the author of a terrific new book called The Sum of Us. The story McGhee tells orbits around a depressing metaphor: the drained swimming pool. For a good chunk of the 20th century, American towns offered grand community swimming pools as symbols of leisure and civic pride. They were testaments to public investment.
But then desegregation happened and the pools had to be integrated. Rather than open them up to everyone, town after town simply shut them down. And not only did they close the pools, they nuked their parks departments and effectively abandoned public investment altogether. So in the end, Black Americans didn’t get to enjoy the pools, but neither did white people who were motivated by self-destructive racial ideologies.
This, McGhee argues, is the story of American politics in microcosm. The entire country is now one giant drained pool. Too many Americans have too easily accepted the lie animating so much of our history, namely that politics is a zero-sum contest in which one group’s gain must be another group’s loss.
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Camps for refugees are growing as old rivalries between Fulani herders and Dogon farmers are exacerbated in Mali’s war on Islamist militants. The Guardian: Mali conflict: 'It's not about jihad or Islam, but justice'
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Mopti used to be a stopover for tourists on their way to the fabled Timbuktu, or to see the homes of the Dogon people cut into the yellow cliffs of Bandiagara. The Malian city, which is known for its grand mosque and rock-salt markets, lies where the Niger and Bani rivers meet. When the rivers flood, the town is turned into a series of islands.
But the visitors and their cameras are gone, and the 4x4s that used to transport them replaced with those bearing logos of humanitarian organisations, as the Mali government struggles to root out a strengthening Islamist movement that has been expanding from the north of the country since 2015.
Khadija Hamadoun Diallo, a Fulani farmer, is sitting on a plastic mat, a red and black veil loosely covering her hair, in the shade of a white tent on the edge of Mopti. She has been living with her children in the camp for displaced people for about four months. Some have been there several years. More come every week, she says, all praying for the return of peace and security.
“First, soldiers came to search our homes, and made a few arrests in the village. Then they returned a month later. They appeared out of nowhere on pickup cars. And they started shooting.
“With the help of the Dozo, they burned down our houses,” says Diallo. “Now we have nothing left there.”
Mopti in central Mali, which has filled with villagers displaced by the insurgency. Photograph: Michele Cattani/AFP/Getty
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As Haiti plunges deeper into turmoil, a social media rallying cry emerges: Miami Herald: #FreeHaiti
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It was born out of collective frustration and helplessness, springing to life in a shocking act of violence: a botched raid on a gang stronghold in a Port-au-Prince slum that left at least four Haitian police officers dead, another missing, and their armored vehicles and high-caliber automatic weapons seized.
Within hours of the ill-fated Friday operation in the Village de Dieu, or Village of God slum, the hashtag #FreeHaiti emerged, riding a wave of anger as videos showed gang members dragging the bodies of two slain cops.
“A generation is taking a beating,” said Chrismy Augustin, 24, a medical student in Port-au-Prince who for days had been signing off his Haiti tweets #FreeHaiti under his handle @LikeChrisss and watched the hashtag go viral over the weekend as Haiti wrestled with its latest crisis. “You feel like the future of the country is dying.”
Taking a life of its own, the #FreeHaiti hashtag has been shared in posts on Twitter more than a half-million times by influencers, ordinary and angry Haitians, Haiti-born celebrities like actors Jimmy Jean-Louis and Garcelle Beauvais, and rappers French Montana, Tyga and Cardi B. The Grammy winner tweeted under her @iamcardib handle, “When ya see third world countries or countries that can be more developed don’t blame the people of the country….Blame the government.”
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