Tag: race relations

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Missouri: Dept Of Justice Finds Ferguson Police Engaged In “Racially Biased Enforcement”

Ferguson, Missouri

USA Today reports that the Department of Justice has found the Ferguson Police Department engaged in racially biased policing:

A Justice Department review has found that the troubled Ferguson Police Department engaged in a pattern of racially biased enforcement during suspect stops and used unreasonable force against a disproportionate number of African American suspects, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the findings

In 88% of cases in which Ferguson police documented the use of force, that force was used against African Americans, according to the official who is not authorized to comment publicly. In addition, in all 14 canine bite incidents for which information about the race of the suspect was available, the person bitten was African American.

The Justice findings, while not unexpected, comes six months after the fatal shooting of a black teenager by then-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

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Texas Sportscaster Dale Hansen Brings Common Sense To Racial Controversy

Last year, veteran sportscaster Dale Hansen of Dallas/Fort Worth’s WFAA gained national attention when he addressed the issue of Michael Sam coming out before the NFL draft.

Hansen again brought his common-sense wisdom to the “Hansen Unplugged” segment of his telecast Tuesday in discussing a controversy in the Dallas suburb of Flower Mound.

At a recent basketball game against a rival, more racially diverse school, students were photographed last week holding up signs that read “White” and “Power.” Hansen addressed the issue and it’s origin.

Hansen chided the Flower Mound students’ parents who dismissed the dustup as nothing more than an accidental pairing of signs alongside each other. He shared that his granddaughter recalled attending games at Flower Mound where students would chant “Welfare babies, do you know who your daddy is? Because we know ours.”

He also reached back to his own upbringing in Iowa, where he said his mind was “twisted” by the contrast between his father’s constant and casual use of the “N-word” with praise for the only black family in the county where Hansen grew up.

“Kids have to be taught to hate and it’s our parents and grandparents, and our teachers and coaches, too, who teach us to hate,” Hansen said. “Kids become the product of that environment. I was. And they are.”

“The kids who hold the signs and chant their racist slurs — and it’s not all of them. It never is,” he said. “But their ignorance perpetuates the stereotype of all of us in Texas as a racist, ignorant people.”

Watch Hansen’s take-down below. And bravo once again, Mr. Hansen!

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Jon Stewart On Eric Garner Case: “I Honestly Don’t Know What To Say”

Jon Stewart opened Wednesday night’s Daily Show dropping the comedy to tackle the “utterly depressing” non-indictment in the Eric Garner case. He said, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to say. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time.”

At least with Ferguson, Stewart said, there was conflicting testimony, “but here there is none of that.” And there’s no question about unreliable witnesses because there’s video and “we are f*cking watching it.”

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Wisconsin GOP Nominee For AG Would Defend Ban On Interracial Marriage

Brad Schimel, the current GOP nominee for Attorney General for Wisconsin, was asked on a public access TV interview if he would have defended the state’s now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage.

Schmiel said not only would he have defended the anti-gay law, he would have defended a ban on interracial marriage.

Via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

For months, Schimel has said he would have defended the state’s ban on gay marriage in court because the attorney general is obligated to uphold state laws and provisions in the state constitution.

As he discussed his stance on that issue last month on an Oshkosh cable access program, he was asked if it would have been his obligation to defend a ban on interracial marriage if he had been an attorney general in a state with such a law 60 years ago. He sighed and said, “Yeah, it is.” “It might be distasteful to me …but I’ve got to stay consistent with that — as the state’s lawyer, it’s not my job to pick and choose.”

Responding to the criticism, Schimel issued a statement Wednesday that said: “Love and the law are colorblind, as they should be. Many shameful, racist laws were changed over the course of time in this country by legislators, the courts and the people’s direct votes. But if Susan Happ wants to make up new laws, or change old ones, she’s running for the wrong job.”

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New York Times Frank Bruni on Paula Deen and racism

Former New York Times restaurant reviewer Frank Bruni repudiates the idea that Paula Deen deserves “clemency” regarding her admitted racial comments, noting that she’s 66 years old and has lived her life far south of the Mason-Dixon:

“Please. All of her adult years postdate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and she’s a citizen of the world, traveling wide and far to peddle her wares. If she can leave Georgia for the sake of commerce, she can leave Georgia in the realm of consciousness.

“Beyond which, people can change, growing past wrongful ways in the name of what’s right. We pass new laws. We adopt new language. That’s the recipe for progress: putting justice ahead of habit, principle over precedent.”

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What Would You Do? – Bike thieves

Sad commentary on how people still view race in this country.

The 1:50 mark will make your heart sink. But if we don’t see these kinds of experiments to know that race dynamics can still take this turn, we’ll never pay attention to the problem.

The white guy and the pretty girl get offers of help.

The black guy? Multiple calls to the police.