Posted on 09/05/2014 4:51:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Hip hop artist and activist Jasiri X (right) speaks during a town hall discussion on Michael Browns death in Ferguson, Mo., and police brutality as Ron Hampton, former executive director of the National Black Police Association looks on.
WASHINGTON (NNPA) During a rousing, standing-room only town hall discussion dedicated to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and police killings of young, Black men across the nation, Ron Daniels, declared, a state of emergency in Black America.
Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a group devoted to the social, political and economic empowerment of the Black community, said that there are two Black Americas.
Some Black people are doing quite well, unless they get stopped for driving while Black, theyre living in the suburbs and exurbs, said Daniels. But in the urban inner city areas, Americas dark ghettos, as Malcolm X would say, people are catching more hell than ever before.
Ron Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, speaks during the town hall discussion on Michael Browns death in Ferguson, Mo., and police brutality.
One of those people was Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager who was shot to death in the middle of the road in Ferguson, Mo., by Darren Wilson, a White police officer. Browns lifeless body was left face down in the street for more than four hours as onlookers snapped photos and videos with their smartphones and news of the shooting spread on social media.
During the town hall discussion, Hilary Shelton, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said that he grew up in St. Louis and knows Ferguson very well and saw it transition from a town that was majority White to one that is 67 percent Black.
Shelton noted that only three of the 53 policemen that serve Ferguson are Black. The mayor is a White Republican and five out of six councilmembers are also White.
When you have a scenario where everything is set up as if it were some occupying force and that occupying force is suppressing rather than protecting those communities, you end up with the kind of response that we got with Michael Brown, explained Shelton.
Ron Hampton, a former executive director of the National Black Police Association, said that the Black community cant look at the Michael Brown killing as a single incident in time.
[The Michael Brown shooting] is the continuation of the assault and the attack on Black men and women in the Black community, stated Hampton. The militarization of police departments started after Vietnam. Police departments received military equipment after the Vietnam War, after Desert Storm, and after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And now that equipment is being used in the War on Drugs waged in the Black communities.
Adding Black men and women to the police department is not enough, said Hampton.
You can add six more police officers or 20 more Black police officers to the Ferguson police, but if we dont address the systemic issues around the culture the policies and practices of the police department, residents will continue to be brutalized by police officers, he said.
Nkechi Taifa, senior policy analyst for the Open Society Foundations, said that the treatment of Browns body after he was shot and killed was reminiscent of how Blacks were treated after they were lynched, a tactic used to instill fear in the hearts of slaves and later freed Blacks following the Civil War.
It was terrorism then and it is terrorism now, said Taifa.
Jasiri X, a Pittsburgh-based hip hop artist and activist who traveled to Ferguson to protest the killing of Michael Brown, said that George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager in Sanford, Fla., and although Michael Dunn was found guilty of attempted murder, he was not found guilty in the killing of Jordan Davis, an unarmed Black teenager in Jacksonville, Fla.
If we are continually shot down and no one is to blame, then what do you think is going to happen if this happens over and over and over again? asked Jasiri X. Ferguson is simmering right now, but so is New York City, so is Chicago, and so is Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Jasiri X continued: If Darren Wilson is not indicted, what do you want us to do? If youre not going to give us justice, we have to ask whats wrong if we take justice?
Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, asked a different question.
The question is: What is the Justice Department going to do? The Justice Department can bring civil rights charges in this case, but if theyre going to do it, they cant drag their feet, said Arnwine. Remember, this administration goes out in December 2016. It is imperative that charges are brought right now. All the elements that are required are there. The question of intent will be the hardest that they will have to deal with.
Arnwine added: We dont want to be sitting here a year from now like we are with the [civil rights case against George Zimmerman] asking, what happened?
The panelists presented a range of recommendations from mandating body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras for all police departments to police accountability review boards and building a comprehensive database of shootings involving law enforcement officials.
Taifa said the Black community has to be more creative in seeking justice, possibly turning to the United Nations and filing a petition under International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Daniels lamented the missed opportunity to use economic sanctions and boycotts to force reforms around the Stand Your Ground law in Florida following the tragedy of the Martin shooting and the not guilt verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. Daniels said that no national leaders would call for an economic sanctions campaign in Florida and wondered aloud if their corporate ties had anything to do with their silence.
The economic benefits from this chump change that [corporations] are giving us is not worth taking the fire out of our movement, said Daniels.
Jasiri X said that he was concerned about the intergenerational divide that he observed during the protests in Ferguson.
When night came and the young people had to face off against tanks, snipers, and tear gas, they felt abandoned by the elder leadership, said Jasiri X.
Jasiri X stressed the importance for elders in the Civil Rights Movement to support young leaders as they organize new groups to fight for social justice and political reform.
Jasiri X said that actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte met with more than 40 hip hop artists last year to guide them in using their art to talk about mass incarceration, violence in the community, and violence against women.
[Belafontes] not trying to grab the mic and get on the mic, said Jasiri X. Hes using his wisdom and knowledge to guide and direct us.
Daniels agreed.
Daniels called on young civil rights activists such as Jasiri X to take the lead in the current movement around police violence, calling it a matter of principle.
Those that are being most affected, those that are being stopped and frisked and shot down on the streets and harassed are young people. They should be at the center and the lead, said Daniels. We need to step back, we need step aside, we need to move over and let them speak.
Some goofy dressed idiot with a microphone talking racism isn’t a leader, he’s just another clown.
Jasiri the Tenth? What happened to the other nine?
Bring it!
ROFLMAO!!!! Great catch. ;-)
That's what the "knock out game" is all about, isn't it?
Michael Brown (or any man) SHOULD BE dead because of his actions. The world is certainly a more beautiful place without him and his criminal actions.
Some leaders!
They talk about everything except that which will make life better for the young black people.
No talk about obeying the law, being peaceful, staying in school and getting an education, getting married to your baby momma and providing for your children.
I guess it is politically incorrect to suggest that black people be productive members of society and advance their communities.
At this point, it’s time to give them a few counties in the far north east of their own. Unlike most minorities (Asian,Indian even Latinos), they are unable to live in the United States and rapidly becoming a threat to the Constitution, education, moral and social ethics of the country and the people that live here.
He’s right. It is time for black leaders to stand up and ax, er, ask some tough questions:
1) Why is the rate of crime so high in our neighborhoods?
2) Why are our children’s test scores so much lower than other groups?
3) Why is the percentage of stable, husband and wife households so low?
4) Why do our children idolize “entertainers” who incite violence, crime, and misogyny?
5) Why are the vast majority of our children born out of wedlock?
How can these people expect to be taken seriously? Their young men are killing each other at rates that are simply insane, yet they think the problem is a racist society? Wake up black America, you are being destroyed from within, but not by racism. You are being fed the lie that you need to be proud, angry and defiant. Well guess what, you tell a bunch of 17 and 18 year old males that they are justified in that mindset and you get exactly what you have. Angry young males killing each other and getting killed by acting exactly as you pushed them to.
Keep in mind, these “leaders” (including Erik Holder) fomenting this anger need those dead bodies. It’s what empowers them. They then feed you even more angry bullsh7t (via their music and speeches), and you get more dead bodies. It’s they who are your enemy, not whites or the police. But go ahead, keep following those who tell you that you need to be proud, angry and defiant. But don’t wonder why that mindset leads to more and more of your youth killing each other, and to them getting killed by those who are charged with keeping some semblance of societal order.
If the black community doesn’t break free of these 70’s marxist radicals using these kid’s dead bodies as sand bags around their positions from which they attack this country, then the vicious cycle will never end. Never.
Why cant we talk about IQ?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3052988/posts
Over-militarization of the police is definitely an issue.
However, connecting the Brown shooting to that issue is ridiculous, and makes the accusers look like fools.
There may be police misconduct hills to die on, Brown isn’t one of them.
Give it up. You are embarrassing yourself.
I am pretty sure, in addition to black police organizations, there are organizations for Latino and Asian/Pacific Islanders. My question is, are there any white/European police organizations?
I always liked the first post in response on that thread.
Bill Newman: White Americas invisible injustice
http://www.gazettenet.com/home/13436020-95/bill-newman-white-americas-invisible-injustice
Ron Daniels is a veteran Marxist who first played with the Communist Party/fronts (Center for Constitutional Rights, etc) for decades before trying to become the leader of all black people (NBIPA), etc.
He’s as red as can be and also very dangerous. He is a well speaking demagogue.
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