Time to Name the Names and State the Facts—Racism Is Alive and Virulent

Came across a Facebook posting by a former exec director of a Madison, Wisconsin non-profit praising the cop who hugged a young black man at a protest against racism on the west coast.

Couldn't resist noting that a simple act of kindness and decency by a white cop treated as extraordinary indicates much about our political culture and it isn't good.

Certainly hugging young black and brown men is eminently preferable to shooting them to death or throwing them in prison but that this 'let's move forward' reaction to the murder in Ferguson gaining currency in some white liberal circles is appalling.

As Natasha Hakimi Zapata writes in The Guardian and Truthdig: Why That Moving Photo of a Cop Hugging a Boy at a Ferguson Protest Is Bullshit.

Writes Zapata:

Like a supermarket Christmas ad, this photograph taken at a Ferguson protest in Portland, Oregon, feasts on a moment of truce and peace amid the anger. What nonsense. It is one moment among many, and the choice to look at it and celebrate it is clearly a choice to be lulled by cotton candy. It has got more than 400,000 Facebook shares. Each one of those shares is a choice of what to see and what not to see. In the context of the completely unresolved and immensely troubling situation, not just in Ferguson but across the United States, where Ferguson has opened wounds that go back centuries, this picture is a blatant lie.

This is a lie.

But there is truth in the 100s of protests across the United States.

In arguably the most brilliant piece on a political news show, the Lawrence O'Donnell Show, I have ever seen. The St. Louis district attorney's office has two prosecutors who should be investigated for misconduct for their affront to justice and law during the grand jury proceedings.

In Ron Kuby's piece in in the New York Daily News.

From the U.S DoJ and White House.

And in the hearts and minds of 10s of millions of Americans, not among them the Republican Party that relies on racism as a foundation.

Racism is an American as apple pie and its staying power over the bodies and lives of minority Americans remains an outrage.

Civil Rights Group Blasts Grand Jury Failure to Indict White Killer Cop

'Open season on people of color'

Why should anyone offer an institutional critique of racist St. Louis County and prison-state America when Jay Nixon (Dope-Missouri) might run for Senate in 2016?

Because it's right.

From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

"Today, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Executive Director Vincent Warren released the following statement in response to the news that the Grand Jury in the Michael Brown case failed to indict Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who killed him.

"It’s difficult to see how anyone in the community can have faith in the system at this point: the failure to indict sends the clear message that it's open season on people of color. All resistance must be viewed through that lens, and the focus must remain on the injustice of a white police officer getting away – yet again – with killing a young unarmed Black man. We stand with the community in anger and in mourning. We stand with the people in the streets of Ferguson, just as the world stood with protesters in Tahrir Square, in Gaza, in Hong Kong. The world must learn: Black lives matter."

Another Young Black Man Killed by White Police

Message at George Washington U.
  Via ThinkProgress/ Holley Matthews

You could be killed for being black for walking down the street - Yes, you can

Update: "While the grand jury proceeding in St. Louis County has concluded, the (U.S.) Justice Department’s investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown remains ongoing. Though we have shared information with local prosecutors during the course of our investigation, the federal inquiry has been independent of the local one from the start, and remains so now."
-- Attorney General Holder Statement on the Conclusion of the Grand Jury Proceeding in the Shooting of Michael Brown
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The fact is few expected the murderous white garbage, Darren Wilson, who calls himself police would have be held accountable for harassing and then killing Michael Brown.

Few expected the ass of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Robert P. McCulloch, to act as a public advocate; he sounded more like a defense attorney for Wilson last night. McCulloch belongs to the racists.

Few expected Gov. Jay Nixon (Dope-Missouri) to act and speak for justice.

No one will confuse these slime with civil rights advocates.

A base of white America holding political power in white America doesn't like blacks, doesn't like the sight of blacks driving, walking, voting, and would prefer blacks be segregated away or in prison.

White America has largely succeeded in its sick project.

"As I have said in previous posts, no matter which way you cut it, policing in a democracy is 90 percent about relationship. No one polices a community and effectively responds to crime and disorder in that community without FIRST building honest and thoughtful relationships with that community," writes former Madison, Wisconsin police chief, David Couper.

The relationship between blacks and St. Louis County racists is not thoughtful and honest, it's hateful, hostile and life-destroying.

Is anyone surprised that a small segment of the community reacted with rage and violence? (Eligon, Blinder, NYT)