Free Republic

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND— Sirens wail frequently outside Bronwyn Mayden’s office, with ambulances and squad cars rushing to the University of Maryland Medical Center half a block away. It’s a trauma hospital, the one where 25-year-old Freddie Gray wound up dying in April from a neck injury sustained in police custody. Mayden deals with trauma, too, but of a different kind. Assistant dean at the university’s School of Social Work, she’s also executive director of Promise Heights, an academic-community partnership that assists one of West Baltimore’s neediest neighborhoods just over a mile from her office. Upton-Druid Heights – like the adjacent Sandtown...

Teenage girls chatter in a dressing room about the new musical coming to the Black Academy of Arts and Letters theater. The mood switches when conversation turns to the viral video of a McKinney pool party where a police officer dragged down a barefoot, bikini-clad 15-year-old girl. The majority of police officers have kids, said Camryn Jennings, a 14-year-old with a soft voice and a laser focus. “They wouldn’t want any other person to basically abuse their children and get away with it.” Camryn’s mother is black. Her father is white. An uncle is a police officer. Race and policing...

Two Baltimore police officers spoke through voice-altering technology to CNN’s Brooke Baldwin Wednesday morning, telling her that cops are in a “reactionary mode” since the criticism of the department over the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. Violence has spiked in Baltimore since a supposed “police slowdown,” in which officers pull back from their duties when they feel a lack of city and community support. The officers said police are still responding to emergency requests, but have stopped initiating policing, instead retreating into a “reactionary mode.” “Even though you have reasonable suspicion…nine out of 10 times, that officer...

In Baltimore, the GOP candidate spoke of the suicide of Kalief Browder and his ordeal in Rikers Island jail.BALTIMORE—Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, referred to the suicide of 22-year-old Kalief Browder as a tragic example as he spoke of justice applied unequally to black and white Americans Tuesday night. Browder was arrested in 2010, when he was 16, for stealing a backpack—a crime he insisted he did not commit. He was in jail on Rikers Island in New York City for three years, without a conviction. His plight, including brutal beatings by jail guards and other...

Barbara Tasch June 10, 2015 New York police commissioner William Bratton said he'd like to hire more non-white officers but most of them have criminal records and therefore, he can't, The Guardian reported. “We have a significant population gap among African American males because so many of them have spent time in jail and, as such, we can’t hire them," Bratton said in an interview with the publication. For this high number, Bratton blamed the "unfortunate consequences" of stop-and-frisk policing carried out on young non-white men over the last few years in New York. A felony conviction, domestic violence charges,...

On Tuesday, Dennis L.A. White, an actor known for portraying Damion 'D-Roc' Butler in the biopic "Notorious," issued a tweet suggesting violence against the daughters of Eric Casebolt, the former McKinney, Texas, police officer whose actions at a pool party incident sparked protests. The tweet has since been taken down, but not before being captured for posterity. Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit was one of those who captured White's message before it was removed. "What if we found eric casebolt's (sic) family & beat up the young girls in it," he tweeted. "Would that b fair? If u live...

McKinney, Texas, has joined Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore as cities known not for their business, tourism, climate or economy, but as communities torn apart by racial controversy. The Texas town has been targeted by protesters since a video of a white police officer confronting a mostly black crowd of teenagers went viral, leading to claims of police brutality. But some commentators say the drama in Texas is the latest case of racial agitators deliberately dividing Americans for their own personal gain. Colin Flaherty, the author of “White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How...

For someone who claims to fight against racism... Yes, you read that title correctly. Unfortunately, some of you were born white. Guilty. All that money you’re making? If you’re white, you didn’t earn that. Somebody else made that happen. So here’s what you should do: Take that extra savings you have, or money you were saving for a family trip to Disney World, and give it away. Not to starving children or to the Red Cross, though. You’re supposed to find a black person, any black person, and deposit that money directly into their bank account. Solely because they are...

RIOTING broke out at MetLife Stadium tonight at the Summer Jam Concert. It was a hip hop/rap concert hosted by Hot 97. Tyson TrishVerified account ‏@tysontrish OC gas being deployed outside MetLife Stadium Summer Jam concert @NorthJerseybrk East Rutherford, NJ Protesters threw bottles and glass objects at the police.East Coast 911 reported: EastRutherford Personnel continue to operate at MetLife Stafium, the venue for the Hot 97 Summer Jam music event this evening, where a riot & multiple fights broke out this evening. Law Enforcement personnel have had bottles/glass & other objects thrown at them. At least 1 trooper has been...

Hiring more non-white officers is difficult because so many would-be recruits have criminal records, the New York police commissioner, Bill Bratton, has said. “We have a significant population gap among African American males because so many of them have spent time in jail and, as such, we can’t hire them,” Bratton said in an interview with the Guardian. Police departments, responding to widespread protests against several high-profile police killings of black men, are boosting efforts to recruit more non-white officers. But budget restrictions, strained relations between police and minority communities and, according to Bratton, a history of indiscriminate policing tactics...

<p>The video made me cry because it showed me how black children are not allowed to play. How they’re not allowed to just be (expletive deleted) kids. How their play becomes criminalized and how they’re socialized to become black adults who internalize that their very breathing selves are criminal.</p>

Facts did not matter much when the race-activist community held a press conference outside of the McKinney Police Station earlier today. This was in response to the now infamous pool party that took place last weekend in the suburban Craig Ranch subdivision of a Dallas suburb. Tempers flared, feelings frayed, and one speaker was compelled to threaten the Texas city with bringing in the Nation of Islam’s volatile spiritual leader Louis Farrakhan as a solution. The general demand list was that the group wanted 10-year police veteran Eric Casebolt fired and criminally charged. Executive Director of Justice Seekers, Rev. Ronald...

The host of a Texas pool party that led to the suspension of a police officer says things took a turn for the violent when a neighbor began hurling racial slurs and insults at party-goers. A woman identified as Tatiana Rhodes, 19, said that she and some friends had organized and were enjoying the party at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool on June 5 when the conflict with a white neighbor broke out. “This lady was saying racial slurs to some friends that came to the cookout. She was saying such things as ‘black effer’ and ‘that’s why you...

They’re not the only group still opposed, of course — senior citizens and white evangelicals also say no to SSM — but they’re the only group that’s under intense partisan pressure to conform that’s still resisting. When Obama announced his support for gay marriage in 2012, at least one poll showed a sea change in black opinion in the aftermath, from 41 percent in favor to 59 percent virtually overnight. One 2012 exit poll found 51 percent support for SSM among blacks versus 41 percent opposition. Pew’s polls over the years have found that black support did increase noticeably...

Regardless of what Democrats and the media say, White Privilege is hogwash. The word privilege means “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” Privilege is, therefore, not based on accomplishment but rather something given by another person of entity. The most glaring example of Black Privilege is that which is enjoyed by Barack Obama. He is at best an incompetent fool but more properly an enemy of America who Black Privilege status keeps him from being described this way. In almost every walk of life from schools to workplaces...

The night of the riot, if that's the right word, the staff at the Everyone's Place bookstore stood outside on North Avenue, just to make sure nobody got the wrong idea. The soul food restaurant across the street was shuttered and untouched, but looters were ransacking the pharmacy next door. A boy said let's burn it, and Ayyana Malik had to remind him that fire would spread and destroy the bookshop too. Some call the recent Baltimore riots an uprising. Others think it achieved little and damaged the community, but many more African-Americans in this segregated city say it was...

Up to 200 South Philadelphia residents organized a large protest this week to take a stand against what they describe as “racial attacks” from four black women towards white residents. Residents claim that these four women have been “terrorizing” the neighborhood. Speakers said things like “white lives matter” and held up signs saying things like “We know who you are!” and “White women’s lives matter.” And they’re not just upset at these women, they’re outraged that the police haven’t taken any serious action against them. 911 calls were placed, but there were reportedly zero reports taken. Anonymous individuals told WPVI...

Many of Jamaica's social problems, especially those concerning the family and paternity, can be alleviated if the country practised polygamy, a female member of the Islamic Council of Jamaica has said. "I don't understand why it is a situation where it is being looked upon as such a disadvantage, when to me, it has practical use. I think it can solve a lot of our problems," emphasised Rashidah Khan-Haqq while speaking at yesterday's Editors' Forum held at the Gleaner's headquarters on North Street in Kingston. According to Khan-Haqq, if Jamaican men were allowed to have more than one wife, the...

Baltimore residents seem to be facing an impossible dilemma: They can have abusive policing, or hardly any at all. The first option was abundantly well-documented in the days after Freddie Gray’s death: the history of rough rides and brutality; the repeated inattention to emergencies; the unwise tactical decisions. Since the city exploded, then calmed down, residents are starting to get a feel for their other choice. As The Baltimore Sun noted over the weekend, May saw the most murders in any month in Charm City since 1972. Non-lethal shootings have gone up sharply as well. But arrests are down across...

The questions around reparations to descendants of slaves in America often trigger strident conversations. These discussions lay bare how race continues to affect the nation - despite the unfounded protestations by Americans that race holds little relevance to their lives. The "coded racial appeals" that Ian Haney Lopez has written in his informative book, "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism & Wrecked The Middle Class," is must reading for all Americans and provides a foundation for how racism endures and evolves. In this week's guest blog, Michael Holzman provides additional thought suggesting the moral debt America...