28 Year-Old Sandra Bland Died While in Police Custody.
Two weeks ago Sandra Bland was a beautiful, vibrant, sassy, knowledgeable, strong, college-educated young woman on her way to a good job at her alma mater. Today she is a lifeless corpse. Dead. Funeral arrangements are being made as I type.
Even as the circumstances surrounding her death are yet to be determined, there's no escaping the fact that Sandra Bland lies stiff and lifeless in a refrigerator today because of the actions initiated by a power-drunk petty tyrant of a police officer who was empowered and facilitated by our history and by a justice system that cares naught for the lives of black people.
Sandra Bland lies dead today because a cop over-policed her to death.
Since learning about the unnatural death of Sandra, we have gone through the very predictable established ritual. Those of us who care have howled in pain, gotten angry, pleaded, shed tears. Just as predictable, those who understand the system that works for them and theirs, and see nothing wrong with the death of another unarmed black person after interacting with a law enforcement officer, have intruded in our space to once again explain legal intricacies and provide cover for a racist asshole of a cop and the system which gave him the power of life and death.
That system encourages officers to over-police black people to death.
Predictable, too, the response of the media. Having established themselves as willing partners and mouthpiece of murderous cops, they have covered the death of Sandra Bland as they would a Little League Game. "Neither of them tried to deescalate the situation," declared Anderson-Breaking-News!-Cooper. "She was very arrogant from start to finish," says CNN's Harry Houck, an "analyst" who has yet to see a shooting that wasn't justified. Score another one for the cop. Absolutely no outrage that another unarmed American lost her life as consequence of an illegal arrest. No attempt to connect the dots and discuss the very obvious pattern.
They refuse to admit that racist, overzealous, murderous cops over-police black people to death.
Officer Encinia had just finished writing a ticket for a white driver when he spotted Sandra's car. That white driver is alive and well. Did not have to lie face down in the dirt with a knee in her back. With the black Sandra, Encinia wrote her a warning, invited her to state her grievances, had his feelings hurt because she dared to take him up on his offer, and then decided to teach her a lesson. He wanted to stamp his authority all over her. How dare she try to defend herself. How dare she quote her knowledge of the law. Didn't she know who he was? More importantly, didn't she know who SHE was?
In giving his closing speech in A Time Kill, Matthew McConaughey's character conducted a little experiment. It is an exercise that I have used before. I want to use it again. For those of you who do not feel the urgency to do something; for those of you who are enraged that what happened to Sandra Bland overshadowed your candidate's appearance at NN; I want you to do something: Will you please, just for a moment, close your eyes and revisit the video of Sandra's encounter with Officer Encinia. See him approach her, hear his questions to her, hear her responses.
Can you see them?
I want you to picture Sandra and the cop.
Now imagine that Sandra is white.
Imagine that she was your daughter, your granddaughter, your sister, your niece, your cousin, your girlfriend, your friend. Now tell me how you feel.
The Support the Dream Defenders group is not content with only joining the chorus of voices condemning the continuing terrorizing of people of color by out-of-control cops. We want to do more. We want to use the law to fight back. Will you join us?
Will you help us? For Sandra. For the 96 people killed so far this month.
Help us make a difference by pressuring your representatives to pass the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act (MBOPRA):
Please Contact Your Representative
#LetOurPoorPeopleLive
Update on Our FOIA Progress
100% success rate.
All governors and their enablers acceded to our requests or caved to our demands. Not one of them investigated to see how many poor people would suffer and die. Not one. They don't give a s$$t. They don't give a rat's a$$. They don't give a flying f$ck how many poor people die, how many suffer, how many lose their homes. They claim to be Christian, but they are inhumane. Ebola killed 2 Americans. Those Republican governors kill 63 Americans per day.
Charting Our FOIA Progress: #LetOurPoorPeopleLive #STDDs
(Dark green indicates we have heard back.)
|
State |
Sent |
Heard Back |
Recipient |
Deaths |
Alabama |
|
|
Gov R.J. Bentley-R |
215-562 |
Alaska |
|
|
Gov Bill Warner-I (Thanks!) |
0 |
Florida |
|
|
Gov Rick Scott-R |
1158-2221 |
Georgia |
|
|
Gov Nathan Deal-R |
561-1176 |
Idaho |
|
|
Gov Butch Otter-R |
76-179 |
Kansas |
|
|
Gov Sam Brownback-R |
113-330 |
Louisiana |
|
|
Gov Bobby Jindal-R |
249-542 |
Maine |
|
|
Gov Paul LePage-R |
31-157 |
Mississippi |
|
|
Gov Phil Bryant-R |
141-343 |
Missouri |
|
|
Sen Kurt Schaefer-R |
218-700 |
Montana |
|
|
Sen Art Wittich-R |
50-117 |
Nebraska |
|
|
Gov Pete Ricketts-R |
67-212 |
North Carolina |
|
|
Gov Pat McCrory-R |
455-1145 |
Oklahoma |
|
|
Gov Mary Fallin-R |
174-439 |
South Carolina |
|
|
Gov Nikki Haley-R |
209-551 |
South Dakota |
|
|
Gov Dennis Daugaard-R |
36-95 |
Tennessee |
|
|
Gov Bill Haslam-R |
284-759 |
Texas |
|
|
Gov Greg Abbott-R |
8000-9000 |
Utah |
|
|
Rep Gregory Hughes-R |
102-316 |
Virginia |
|
|
Sen Kathy J. Byron-R |
266-987 |
Wisconsin |
|
|
Gov Scott Walker-R |
139-671 |
Wyoming |
|
|
Gov Matt Mead-R |
22-69 |
|
|
|
Total per Year
(Lowest Estimate) |
23,000 |
Notes:
Abbreviations R Republican. D Democratic. I Independent. Gov Governor. Sen State Senator. Rep State Representative.
Alaska: Gov Bill Warner will sidestep the GOP-controlled legislature and expand Medicaid on his own as of July 16, 2015. Thank you, Gov Warner! Indiana: The Governor now supports the Medicaid expansion. Montana: Montana is waiting for federal approval of their version of Medicaid expansion. Utah: Gregory H. Hughes is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Wisconsin: STDDs continue to support Citizen Action of Wisconsin; however, we filed our own FOIA request for Wisconsin.
Source: Health Affairs Blog: Opting Out Of Medicaid Expansion: The Health And Financial Impacts.
Next Action Steps:
1. Letters to the editor by readers, Kossacks, and followers and members of Support the Dream Defenders.
2. Press releases by readers, Kossacks, and followers and members of Support the Dream Defenders. |
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About Support the Dream Defenders
Members of the Daily Kos group Support the Dream Defenders invigorate three ongoing projects:
1. We coalesced to support the Dream Defenders in Florida and their mission, our first project and the origin of our name. The Dream Defenders defend the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. by "develop(ing) the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power; building alternative systems and organizing to disrupt the structures that oppress our communities." Please donate here.
2. Our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act, crowd-sourced at Daily Kos in the fall of 2014. This bill quickly gained the support of the NAACP and the ACLU. The NAACP forwarded our bill to members of Congress, and we distributed it to members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other progressive members of Congress. President Obama signed into a law a small piece of our bill in December 2014. Our state version of the MBOPRA is currently in committee in the Kansas legislature.
3. Our Freedom of Information Act project. Nineteen Republican governors chose to kill poor people by not expanding Medicaid. Ebola has killed about 9000 people in total; Republican governors kill 23,000 people PER YEAR by refusing federal support for Medicaid, a story ignored by traditional media. Our project forces those governors to out themselves, clapping them in a Catch 22. We will publicize our results through letters to the editor, press releases, and petitions.
More information about STTDs here.
You can receive all future stories of Support the Dream Defenders by clicking here. Then click "Follow," which will make all STDD stories show up in "My Stream" of your Daily Kos page.
This is a community diary.
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