Hoodies, hijabs and songs for Justice
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
Thanks to BKos community member Onomastic for posting this as a comment yesterday.
The lyrics, posted with the you tube say a lot of what I'd like to address today, and the last lines, by Jasiri X resonate in my soul
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Trayvon never gave his cousin his skittles, missed the all star
game didn't see another dribble
And George Zimmerman wasn't even arrested.
The message is only white lives are protected In America.
There was another song, highlighting another violent death posted recently, that isn't getting the attention it deserves.
Tribute to Hijab - Rest in Peace Shaima Alawadi
Just as there are Million Hoodie websites and marches for Treyvon, there is now a Million Hijab solidarity page for Shama Alawadi.
When I read of the brutal beating of Shaima Alawadi which lead to her death, and the words on the note found by her bleeding body ""Go back to your own country. You're a terrorist." my first thought, on reading the news reports was anger.
Then I saw the interview with her daughter in an initial news report:
I got angrier when I read the first statements from local police:
“At this point, we are not calling it a hate crime,” said Lt. Mark Coit of the El Cajon police department. “We haven’t made that determination. We are calling it an isolated incident, because we don’t have any evidence of anything similar going on at this point.”
Later he
stated
...police spokesman Lieutenant Mark Coit said hate-related violence was rare in the area, and no such violent crimes were recorded in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks when anti-Muslim sentiment was reported in other parts of the country. "We haven't had any problems like this at all," Coit said.
I call bullshit.
No matter what we may learn later from the investigation of her murder, the police department is lying about hate crimes in the area. They are not "isolated incidents".
The Southern Poverty Law Center hate map shows quite a few local hate groups.
Fighting hate crimes in San Diego
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that since 2000 hate groups have grown from 602 to 926 nationwide, an increase of 50 percent in eight years. California leads the nation with 84 hate groups with the largest concentration right here in Southern California.
Recently, hate crimes in San Diego County ranged from vandalism including swastikas and racial epithets in Chula Vista, Poway and the University of San Diego to beatings as far north as Oceanside. Most notably, the beating of a Latino man resulted in permanent brain damage and lead to the arrest of several youths who are reputedly members of a white supremacist gang.
Much of the recent growth in hate groups has been attributed to a nativist response to immigration. But there is growing concern that as the economic situation deteriorates, hate groups are likely to exploit the situation by ramping up their hate-laden rhetoric and expanding their recruiting efforts.
Hate Crimes in County Increase Despite Statewide Trends: Report
So hate crimes are "up" against immigrants and Latinos. The area has groups of nativists. They've killed there and here on the East Coast.
I take the issue of people being targeted and marked for death because of the color of their skin, or the clothing they wear very seriously. I also shudder about the rising level of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant xenophobia in our nation.
My husband Nadhiyr frequently wears a kufi. I often, like many of my sisters, wear my head wrapped, which I wrote about here in 2008. My last name is Velez.
We wear hoodies too.
Like the POTUS, if we had a son he would look like Treyvon.
Shaima Alawadi could be me.
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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A new political action committee, PAC+, launched Wednesday to specifically focus on black and Latino communities on behalf of President Obama’s 2012 campaign efforts. Washington Post: PAC+ to focus on black and latino communities in 2012 election
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PAC+ plans to spend $10 million to organize minority voters around the country. The group is led by the same team that created VoteHope in 2007, the nation’s first Democratic super PAC. PAC+ is targeting six states this year: Georgia, Texas, California, Ohio, New Mexico and Arizona.
Those states are flagged as most important because of three criteria, according to PAC+: They have the most potential to form a multiracial new majority where there is a need for building infrastructure; PAC+ resources, time and money would make a meaningful impact; and the races in those states are worth contesting.
“Currently a handful of billionaires are hijacking our democracy and advancing policies that are harmful to the majority of the American people. PAC+ is piloting a new model of SuperPAC that is focused on many donors, not mega-donors,”Steve Phillips, the chairman of PAC+, said in a press release.
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A Tumblr launched Friday is collecting stories from men of color who have been victims of racial profiling. IcouldBeTrayvon.com asks visitors to share stories and pictures about being racially profiled and how that incident made them feel. ColorLines: People of Color Go On Tumblr To Tell Their ‘I Could Be Trayvon’ Stories
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“As boys and men of color, we are providing a platform to share with each other, and with the world, our ‘Trayvon Stories’ — the times we were similarly racially profiled by police or vigilantes, and could have ended up dead after doing nothing more than the everyday activity typical of human beings living in a supposedly free society,” said Dom Apollon, who founded the Tumblr. Apollon is Research Director at the Applied Research Center, Colorlines.com’s publisher.
Apollon says he was inspired to create the Tumblr after he saw the “Planned Parenthood Saved Me” Tumblr that collects stories from women who say Planned Parenthood saved their lives.
For more information on how you can submit your “I could be Trayvon” story visit IcouldBeTrayvon.com/submit
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An experienced commonality by women who face the challenge of raising a Black male child in a nation that far too often views Black male bodies through a prism of fear. Race-Talk: The Black Mother’s Burden
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I do not know Sybrina Fulton. Nor can I claim to understand the depth of her pain. Yet, we share a deep connection. A commonality experienced by those women who face the challenge of raising a Black male child in a nation that far too often views Black male bodies through a prism of fear. You see, Ms. Fulton is living my nightmare. A constant worry that has lingered in the back of my mind since the birth of my eldest son, some sixteen years ago.
Through the years, I have witnessed the world’s reaction to my son evolve as he has grown from a small boy to a young man. In his early years, his easy smile and engaging personality were nothing less than magnetic. Complete strangers would approach him in the street, engage him in conversation, and find themselves easily smitten with his vivacious spirit and endearing charm. Even at that time I worried, how would my son react when in the years to come some of those who found themselves so impressed by this cute, intelligent boy, might grasp their purse a little tighter as he walked by. How might he internalize the daily weight of being viewed by complete strangers as an individual worthy of immediate suspicion?
Over the years I have sought to shield his spirit from the hurt that comes from undeserved hatred. And while trying to protect him from emotional pain, I have also sought to arm him with the knowledge that could one day save his life. He knows, for example, that if he is ever pulled over by the police, that he is to keep both hands on the wheel at all times and only reach for his license and registration when the officer is specifically observing his actions. He knows, even in less menacing situations, that rough play and loud interactions with his buddies of any color will be viewed very differently when he does it, than when his white friends engage in the very same behavior. He knows that on a daily basis, he must exhibit a level of maturity and self control well beyond his years in order to in some way subdue the negative perceptions that could at any time come his way. Still, the truth of the matter is, no amount of advice or muted behavior trumps the physical, immovable fact of the color of his skin and his athletic six-foot frame. His intelligence, easy smile, and endearing personality won’t protect him from unfounded assumptions of criminality or the weight of having to justify his presence at any time, in any setting, by anyone who may for any reason feel uncomfortable with him nearby.
What makes the Trayvon Martin travesty of justice so piercing to me, personally, is the knowledge that Trayvon’s mother loved her baby no less than I love mine. The various pictures of moments throughout a happy childhood that have now found a home on nationwide newscasts provides clear evidence of that. Yet no amount of love and care, and no words of advice could have saved her son from the brutal execution he faced at the hands of a murderous self-appointed neighborhood watch-dog.
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A battle on twitter causes residents of Cape Town to discuss race. New York Times: In a Divided City, Many Blacks See Echoes of White Superiority.
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For countless foreign visitors, Cape Town is an indelible symbol of the beauty and promise of post-apartheid South Africa. Beyond its gorgeous scenery and great wines, its very logo — an outline of majestic Table Mountain superimposed over a rainbow — emphasizes its historic mix of races and cultures, and its most famous resident, Desmond Tutu, is revered as a symbol of tolerance, inclusiveness and forgiveness.
But for many black South Africans, this city represents something very different: the last bastion of white rule.
“No matter how famous/rich u r, ur still a 2nd class citizen if ur Black in Cape Town,” Lindiwe Suttle, a singer and performance artist, wrote in a Twitter challenge to Helen Zille, the white leader of the party that governs this city.
After the post drew a chorus of support from black celebrities and others in the echo chamber of Twitter, Ms. Zille shot back, “What complete nonsense.”
But that was hardly the last word. The Twitter battle, which broke out a few months ago and featured dueling hashtags (#capetownisracist and a countercampaign, #capetownisawesome), has given way to soul-searching in this city of 3.5 million people at the southern tip of Africa: Does this nation’s celebrated rainbow end where the mountain meets the sea?
This is the only major metropolis in South Africa where black people are not the majority, and it remains deeply divided. The particularly harsh legacy of apartheid as it was carried out here has left especially deep scars that still demarcate the geography: whites in the city center and its mountainside inner suburbs, nonwhites in the distant townships on the Cape Flats. Apartheid policies effectively barred blacks from living or even working in the city, giving so-called colored, or mixed-race, people, today the city’s largest ethnic group, priority over blacks for jobs and housing.
Per-Anders Pettersson for The New York Times
Black and mixed-race commuters go to a taxi and train station. Many nonwhites live in distant townships
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There was a lot of fear that Senegal would lose it's democracy. But Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade has admitted defeat in a run-off election to his rival Macky Sall, state media say. BBC: Senegal's Wade admits presidential election loss
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The president conceded in a telephone call to the former prime minister.
Mr Wade had changed the constitution to be able to run for a third consecutive term. The move sparked violent protests earlier this year, leaving six people dead.
Mr Wade, 85, has ruled the West African nation for 12 years.
Mr Wade "phoned his rival Macky Sall at 21:30 GMT to congratulate him after the first results showed him to be the winner of a presidential run-off," the Senegalese Press Agency said on Sunday.
Mr Sall, 50, has so far made no public comments.
Even before Mr Wade's concession, thousands of Sall supporters began celebrating on the streets of the capital, Dakar.
They chanted "Macky president!" and "We have won!"
Mr Wade's move alleviated fears of fresh violence in the country.
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A military force set up by the African Union to hunt down fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony is being launched in South Sudan. BBC: African Union force steps up hunt for Joseph Kony.
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The AU says the 5,000-strong force will exist for as long as it takes to capture or kill Mr Kony.
His Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is accused of rape, mutilation, murder and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Regional UN envoy Abou Moussa said Mr Kony was believed to be in the Central African Republic.
He said the LRA had dwindled in size but was still creating havoc.
Mr Kony and his close aides have been wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague since 2005.
The AU mission comes in the wake of a huge Internet campaign targeting the LRA leader. The video - Kony2012 - has been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube.
"We need to stop Kony with hardware - with military hardware in this case," said Francisco Madeira, the AU's special envoy on the LRA.
"We are on a mission to stop him."
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
Emmett Till, Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin and thousands upon thousands of others; victims at the hands of the prevailing authority. Victims of institutional racism. Victims of...
Power
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.
A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”
-- Audre Lorde
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