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Author Topic: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden  (Read 18056 times)

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AGelbert

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History in Pictures in Memory of Martin Lutehr King Jr.

           
Original caption: "Memphis, Tennessee. An unidentified woman has difficulty holding back her tears as she watches the casket of slain civil-rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., put aboard a plane for transport to his home in Atlanta, Georgia." Bettmann / Getty


               
One of the last pictures to be taken of Martin Luther King Jr., as he spoke to a mass rally in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968, saying he would not halt his plans for a massive demonstration scheduled for April 8 in spite of a federal injunction. Bettmann / Getty


             
People stand near a destroyed and burned-out building on 14th Street and Kenyon Street in northwest Washington on April 6, 1968. Darrell C. Crain / D.C. Public Library Specials Collections / AP


       
More than 2,000 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division were flown into Washington, D.C., on April 6, 1968, to augment the federal and national guard units already on duty in riot-torn sections of the city. # Bettmann / Getty


Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., walks on the arm of Dr. Ralph Abernathy, her husband's successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership conference, leading about 10,000 people in a memorial march in King's honor. The King children—Yolanda, Martin III, and Dexter—are at left with Harry Belafonte. Reverend Andrew Young marches next to Dr. Abernathy.
Bettmann / Getty



       
Rows of Pennsylvania national guardsmen march down the street and sidewalks clearing the area in Pittsburgh's Hill District on April 8, 1968. Residents lean from windows watching the show of force. The guardsmen were called out to restore order following three days of arson and looting in the district.
AP



         
Firemen gather around a fire engine near the intersection of 14th and Irving Streets in Washington, D.C., on April 6, 1968, following rioting after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. # Darrell C. Crain / D.C. Public Library Specials Collections / AP


       
A soldier and civilians walk near a destroyed newsstand at 14th and Kenyon Streets in northwest Washington, D.C., on April 6, 1968, following rioting after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. # Darrell C. Crain / D.C. Public Library Specials Collections / AP

     
President Johnson called federal troops into the nation's capital to restore peace after a day of arson, looting, and violence on April 5, 1968. Here, a trooper stands guard in the street as another (left) patrols a completely demolished building. # Bettmann / Getty

When it comes time for Trump to call in Federal Troops to restore order he will probably authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Hyperbole. President Trump is an American citizen with a family and desires like the rest of us.

Hate or dislike him all you wish, he certainly is a controversial person but he is one of us, a fellow citizen elected our president by fellow citizens who rejected the status quo of career politicians and their never ending lies bull s h i t and lining of their own pockets.

You never said such nice things about Obama-sama.

RE


Isn't is about time you grew up to gang leader??

Right after you drop the Trumpovetsky propaganda.

RE




Golden Oxen,
Your "history in photographs" is, to put it as charitably as I can, rather selective. If you had been objective, you would have shown pictures of Hoover smirking about MLK Jr.'s death. FBI Hoover had him assasinated. THAT is the correct perspective to the history you portray.

No, I do not expect you to respond respectfully. But I wish that, rather than hurl some sarcasm at me or lash out in your typical ad hominem fashion, you would accept this post as constructive criticism.

It really bothers me that you shot yourself in the foot, and probably your family's heart, by voting for an unrepentant enemy of the environment.

We all require a viable biosphere to survive in this valley of tears. I just do not get it, GO. You are smarter than that. Can you hate so much that you are willing to see everyhing you hold dear in this biosphere be increasingly insulted just so Trump remains in power? That does not make any sense at all.

Your Trump 🦍 hero (By the way,how does it feel to see Trump 🐵 depicted the SAME WAY 🦍 you often depicted Obama? My depiction is ACCURATE, unlike yours, because it applies to his polices, not his race.) makes Lyndon B. Johnson look like a saint.

Shame on you for voting for that profit over people and planet TOOL of the Fossil Fuel Fascists.

Here is some recent history that you, due to your blind pro-Trump prejudice, REFUSE to pay any attention to whatsover. It's a simple fact that you cannot handle the truth of the irrefutable damage Trump and his wrecking crew are doing to our environment, never mind our politics.

RE is correct to call you out on your consistent lack of objectivity. Yet, you refuse to acknowledge how you went out of your way to trash Obama, including many derogatory comments aimed squarely at his race.

Yeah, Obama is man I will agree was, and still is, a tool of the oligarchs. Obama's policies were the fascist war-up; Trump is the MAIN EVENT!

As far as policies that  endanger the health and welfare of you and yours, Obama was a piker compared to Trump (see the evidence below).


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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APR 05, 2018 ARTICLES

The Truth About Martin Luther King's Assassination

Snippet:

The last step is to invert the legacies of these once prophets into the polar opposite of who they actually were. The rich kill first, then they own narratives. They do so through propaganda and institutional disinformation. It goes back to money and power, professors pass along lies because they don’t want to lose their jobs, politicians dare not speak against deception if they want to keep their seats and media personalities swallow their tongues or else risk getting blackballed. An implicit agreement is thus arrived at. It is better to pass along lies than to challenge accepted untruths. Those who find the courage to say “the emperor has no clothes on” and speak against the lies of the system are immediately labeled kooks and marginalized. If they speak up too loudly and garner a bit too much of a following, they might end up getting the Lumumba treatment.

There are two ways the legacies of murdered prophets are inverted. One is to lionize them as I noted above and turn them into mythical legends.

Full truth filled article with excellent videos:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-truth-about-martin-luther-kings-assassination/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Golden Oxen,
Your "history in photographs" is, to put it as charitably as I can, rather selective. If you had been objective, you would have shown pictures of Hoover smirking about MLK Jr.'s death. FBI Hoover had him assasinated. THAT is the correct perspective to the history you portray.

No, I do not expect you to respond respectfully. But I wish that, rather than hurl some sarcasm at me or lash out in your typical ad hominem fashion, you would accept this post as constructive criticism.

It really bothers me that you shot yourself in the foot, and probably your family's heart, by voting for an unrepentant enemy of the environment.

We all require a viable biosphere to survive in this valley of tears. I just do not get it, GO. You are smarter than that. Can you hate so much that you are willing to see everyhing you hold dear in this biosphere be increasingly insulted just so Trump remains in power? That does not make any sense at all.

Your Trump 🦍 hero (By the way,how does it feel to see Trump 🐵 depicted the SAME WAY 🦍 you often depicted Obama? My depiction is ACCURATE, unlike yours, because it applies to his polices, not his race.) makes Lyndon B. Johnson look like a saint.

Shame on you for voting for that profit over people and planet TOOL of the Fossil Fuel Fascists.

Here is some recent history that you, due to your blind pro-Trump prejudice, REFUSE to pay any attention to whatsover. It's a simple fact that you cannot handle the truth of the irrefutable damage Trump and his wrecking crew are doing to our environment, never mind our politics.

RE is correct to call you out on your consistent lack of objectivity. Yet, you refuse to acknowledge how you went out of your way to trash Obama, including many derogatory comments aimed squarely at his race.

Yeah, Obama is man I will agree was, and still is, a tool of the oligarchs. Obama's policies were the fascist war-up; Trump is the MAIN EVENT!

You Kind Sir, and your pal RE are the ones who cannot handle the truth.

Palloy has made that point abundantly clear, as has Ashvin. Both your pseudo science and lack of objectivity in all maters has been made abundantly clear. You are merely another hater with your leftist agenda, and god forbid anything or anyone get in it's way, no matter what the accuracy.

I have told you repeatedly that I did note vote for Trump and am a supporter of the Paul family. Yet you continue to pursue your hate, me hate Trump agenda. Lie about my vote as well.

So be it. Continue weeping and moaning and crying about Trump and fossil fuels destroying life on the planet as you drive away to the supermarket in your Camry Anthony, full of hate for others and love of yourself because you are so wonderful and good and planet loving.

I shall continue to laugh and smirk to myself at your absurd lies, falsehoods, and hate filled attacks against people who do not agree with you as well as your lack of knowledge and ability to deal with facts, shown for all to see, who can see, by your banning of Palloy. He does make a complete fool of you with his every objective analysis of your pseudo science postings that are in error, so at least I understand your shame. Ashvin exposed you falsehoods as well.

Remember to Antoine, it was millions upon millions of our fellow citizens that put our President in the White House, not GO.                     Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon Anthony, spring has arrived. GO 

                                                                                    
                                   

Your post is a blatant Ad hominem attack on my person and a groundless attack on much of the material I have posted on. I have reported it and request that the above post be deleted. Have a nice day.


Quote
Proverbs 29 New King James Version (NKJV)
29:1  He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck,
Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

Agelbert NOTE:  The above is a repost from the Doomstead Diner. I place it here to give readers an idea of how thoroughly propagandized and intractable these Trumpers are. As you can see, the repsonse is as much abuse and vitriol as they can come up with until they finish off with some nauseating swaggering saccharin sarcasm at the end.

They cannot be reasoned with, PERIOD.




« Last Edit: April 08, 2018, 10:16:21 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Oh play nice. It's the Lord's Day, you Christians behave.

GO, I'd rather look at XXXX than have to see so many grinning visages of the President that Twitter and Reality TV gave us.

GO knows pictures of Trumpovetsky make the Diners puke, so he puts them up just to be annoying.  He's been doing that since before he got elected, when he was stumping for him.

RE


Yep. GO got tired of trying to get my goat with Nicole Foss grinning pictures after a few years. But, he has picked up with Trump pictures where he left off.

As Da Presidente would say, SAD!


Well thank you for you input and views gentlemen.

As a courtesy to AG, RE, and Eddie I am removing the posting you gents find so offensive.

Understand please from my point of view Eddie and company, I would rather look at and listen to a camel taking a good healthy **** at the local zoo than listening to and reading your hate filled disrespectful fallacious diatribes against our President and contempt towards our citizens who elected him.

May I please request you afford me the same consideration and STFU!  Thanks GO

Posting removed by GO as a courtesy to certain fellow Diners.


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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hate filled disrespectful fallacious diatribes against our my President

Fixed that for you.

Your POTUS, not ours.  You never acknowledged Obama-sama as your President.  You just spit hatred at him.  At Hillary & Bill too.  So now we get to return the favor.  Payback is a B I T C H.

RE



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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April 26, 2018

White Supremacy and Capitalism Are Deeply Entangled With the Colonial Slave Trade

Gerald Horne, Monthly Review Press: The United States may have declared its independence from Britain in 1776, but it was from England and other European powers that the breakaway colonies inherited an evil that was of fundamental significance to its future: slavery. This excerpt of The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism describes how the US is still experiencing that ruinous legacy today.

Read the Book Excerpt




Quote
“Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions”

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
« Last Edit: April 26, 2018, 08:26:24 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Truthdig

APR 27, 2018TD ORIGINALS

From Starbucks to Waffle House: American Society Devalues Black Lives

By Sonali Kolhatkar

SNIPPET:

Had the Waffle House shooting suspect been Muslim or black or both, we would likely have seen the word “terrorism” bandied about from the very start in both major media outlets and on President Trump’s Twitter feed. From Trump’s refusal to address the incident and considering how little speculation has occurred in the media questioning the motives of this white anti-government perpetrator in his targeting of black and brown folk, we can only conclude that there are racial double standards permeating our society, making necessary the assertion that Black Lives need to Matter.

Reinking 👹 would have slaughtered many more people had he not been stopped by James Shaw Jr. 🕊, an African-American.
Were Shaw an armed white man who used his gun to stop Reinking, there might have been no end to the political hay that Trump and the National Rifle Association would have made of the scenario. Instead, there has been a deafening silence from the outspoken president on Shaw, whose life-risking actions contradict the NRA’s favorite fantasy scenario of a “good guy with a gun.” But none of this should surprise us, as neither Trump nor the NRA have demonstrated any real respect for Black Lives.

The other Waffle House incident, which took place in the neighboring state of Alabama on the same day as the Antioch shooting, offered up yet more evidence of anti-black racism with the incredibly disturbing arrest of Chikesia Clemons by multiple male police officers 🦍🦍🦍🦍   late at night. 😠

Full article:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/from-starbucks-to-waffle-house-american-society-devalues-black-lives/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Truthdig

APR 29, 2018TD ORIGINALS

The Crime of Being Poor and Black  >:(

By Chris Hedges

SNIPPET:

Mervilus is 6 feet tall and broad-shouldered and has long, thick dreads. He was never in a gang. He was not a drug dealer. He had a job. He came from a good and loving family. But he was cursed with being black and poor and living in a city, Elizabeth, N.J., where if you are black and poor you are always one step away from being arbitrarily shot or arrested or tossed into jail. This is true in nearly every city in America.

There are cops in poor communities who hunt black boys and men as if they are prey. To them it is a sport. These cops are not always white, although they are often white. But they are always sadists. Intoxicated by the power to instill fear, use lethal force indiscriminately and destroy lives—and allowed to do so by a judicial system that no longer protects the most basic rights of the poor, including due process, adequate legal representation and the right to a jury trial—they circle around their victims like human vultures. If we were to use the strict dictionary definition, these police officers are criminals.

Full article:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-crime-of-being-poor-and-black/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Agelbert NOTE: This article should be required reading EVERY YEAR from the third grade on up to the senior year in high school. Students should be tested on this knowledge yearly as well.

NO student should be allowed to have a high scool degree unless they accept the scientific truth that race is a social construct with no purpose except to maliciously marginalize some for the express purpose of elevating others based on lies and fables.

Truthdig

MAY 20, 2018

The Royal Wedding and the End of Whiteness

By Juan Cole

SNIPPET 1:

Benjamin Franklin was extremely worried about whites being overwhelmed. He said in
“Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.” (1751):
Quote
“Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased.”

So get this. Some of the eighteenth century founding fathers only thought English and Danish people were white. Even Swedes and Germans were “swarthy.” French certainly were. So Franklin would not have considered me white, since my family is French and German. We’re swarthy. We do have some Scottish, but if the Swedish are swarthy I suspect he thought the Scottish were, too. Since Coulter 🐍 is in part Irish and German, Ben Franklin wouldn’t have accepted her as white, either, and was worried about the German part of her family acting like barbarians and interfering in elections. You can only imagine what he would have thought of German grifters like Donald Trump’s 🦀 grandfather 😈.

SNIPPET 2:

But “whiteness” is an illusion. Because the crowned heads of Europe intermarried over centuries and because Spanish nobility was in the mix, and because in turn Spaniards and other southwestern Europeans are up to 20% North African in heritage  as well as having substantial genetic endowments from Jews and various other Muslim peoples, not to mention Phoenicians and sub-saharan Africans– actually all European royal families have been mixed-race for a very long time. In fact, some genealogists allege that Prince Harry is descended from the Prophet Muhammad the residual category of “white”. . . was used [in the early 20th century) by working class Catholics in a desperate bid to distinguish themselves from Latinos and African-Americans. But really. Why are Italian-Americans from Sicily “white” in America, but people from Latin America whose ancestors lived in Catalonia are “brown”? In the medieval era, for a while, both Catalonia and Sicily were in the same country, ruled by the crown of Aragon!

The popular press in America is confused about such issues because many writers do not realize that there is no such thing as race in the 19th century biological sense. You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and by the time you get back to 1400 you have a million ancestors. For someone who hails from Europe, how likely is it that none of them were Arabs and Berbers from southern Spain who had been forced to convert and then married Catholics?

Europe’s population in 1400 was only 78 million or so and [each modern is] descended from a million of them. And Arabs in southern Spain were in turn intermarried with Berbers and Africans. After 50 generations (a generation is 24 years), most of the world’s genes get shared around. Everyone in the Mediterranean basin shares common ancestors from only a few thousand years ago, including Tunisians and Egyptians and Spanish and Italians. The claim about Prince Harry and Muhammad is a little bit of a trick, since most contemporary Europeans are probably descended from Muhammad.

Full article:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-royal-wedding-and-the-end-of-whiteness/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Agelbert NOTE: Great discussion of the history of policing.

The Limits of Police Reform: The Origins and Ends of the Police

May 30, 2018

Alex Vitale talks about his new book “The End of Policing,” which casts a skeptical eye on the liberal calls for police reform, and calls for us to stop asking police to solve a wide variety of social problems



https://therealnews.com/stories/the-limits-of-police-reform-the-origins-and-ends-of-the-police
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Truthdig

JUN 03, 2018TD ORIGINALS

The Second Sight of W.E.B. Du Bois

By Chris Hedges

SNIPPET:

Quote
“But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?” Du Bois asked. “Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!”

“It is curious to see America, the United States, looking on herself, first, as a sort of natural peacemaker, then as a moral protagonist in this terrible time,” he wrote. “No nation is less fitted for this role. For two or more centuries America has marched proudly in the van of human hatred—making bonfires of human flesh and laughing at them hideously, and making the insulting of millions more than a matter of dislike—rather a great religion, a world-war cry: Up white, down black; to your tents, O white folk, and world war with black and parti-colored mongrel beasts.”

Full EXCELLENT article:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-second-sight-of-w-e-b-du-bois/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Hi David, Have always been fascinated by the Amish.

While knowing nothing about the mechanics you are posting about, all my instincts tell me that the Amish are probably very well equipped to deal with the kind of Doom I expect, mainly a financial event that causes much hardship.

They will manage with empty supermarket shelves, no gas or rationed gas, no autos and Uber, as well as a dark boob tube and it's endless sporting events for the dim Colosseum crowd.

                               

                           

                           


                             
... You could split hairs that they can function in their way only because they are cocooned in a functional society that has the money to purchase from them but is rich enough to demand very little from them. ...

You took the words right out of my mouth. And no, I do not think that is simply spliting hairs. There is another group (pacifist German immigrants) in the USA that has the same priviliged existence. I don't remember the name of the group but they were always exempted from the military draft, along with the Amish and the Mennonites. The Mennonites are  similar, but not exactly the same as the Amish.

Quote
The original difference in opinion came in 1693, when Jacob Ammann, a Swiss Anabaptist leader, felt that the church leaders were not holding to strict separation from the world and that spiritual renewal was needed. Ammann did not believe that the ban, or shunning, was being practiced as it should be. He separated from the Swiss Brethren segment of the Anabaptists over this issue and his followers were nicknamed “Amish.”

Ammann enforced more separatist ways upon his followers, and today some practices among the Amish include: untrimmed beards and hooks and eyes in place of buttons on outer garments of the men; horse and buggy transportation; horse-drawn implements for farming; plain and distinctive dress patterns; no electricity in homes.

However, most contemporary Mennonites are not outwardly that different from any person you meet on the street, and in fact live in countries around the world with a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. Mennonites believe in simple living, but express that simplicity in a spirit of stewardship and awareness of the needs of others rather than completely separating from society as the Amish continue to do.
http://thirdway.com/faq/whats-the-difference-between-mennonites-and-amish/

These religious communities also have another privilege that few Americans know about. They have a legal justification for not paying into Social Security. They are not required to have Social Security taxes withheld from their wages. Long ago, they established in Civil Court that, because their religion requires that all be cared for, no matter the age, and no matter whether employed or not, their society group does not require a government sponsored pension system. They are technically right, but the Social Security System has other functions that these pacifists should not be exempt from paying into.

To destroy the cohesion of any one of these communites, including the Amish, all you have to do is engage in corrupt US Government style eminent domain land grabs, as was done to the Native Americans long ago.

The Cherokees had an excellent, fully functional and independent community in Georgia, far exceeding anything the Amish, Mennonites or the other groups mentioned have ever accomplished, yet the government deliberately did not prosecute white poachers and criminals of all sorts that attacked them routinely. The "Trail of Tears" we all know about from the  bastard Andrew Jackson was just the end of a LONG series of land grabs and other assorted clever attacks by Georgia whites.

The problem I have with these Amish good people, who I admire greatly, is that they will not go to bat for poor people outside their community or victims of racism either. The Amish (and the other groups mentioned) will not allow outsiders of color to become part of their communities.

Perhaps they are smart enough to know that this country would eliminate all their privileges in a hearbeat if they weren't 100% white. If that is so, then they are being realistic and practical, not religious or even worthy of praise for their "independent" life style.

Maybe God is protecting them, but I think it is their skin color that is protecting them, not God.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Incarceration Nation: How US Political Prisoners Live in Hellish Conditions 😨

June 13, 2018   

The US has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners. TRNN’s Ben Norton speaks with Nino Brown, of the Jericho Movement and ANSWER Coalition, who says American political prisoners are ignored, while they try to survive on dirty water

Story Transcript

BEN NORTON: It’s The Real News. I’m Ben Norton.

I’m here with the organizer Nino Brown. He organizes in the Boston area with a few different groups, including the ANSWER Coalition and Jericho. Jericho is a movement to free political prisoners in the U.S. And here we’re going to talk about the state of political prisoners in the United States. Frequently when we hear about political prisoners, media outlets talk about them as if they only exist in other countries, and as if the U.S., which has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners but 5 percent of the world’s population, we-, the impression is that we don’t have political prisoners. Of course, that’s not true. There are political prisoners from the Black Power movement who are still incarcerated after decades, from the Native American movement, and from other movements. So we’re going to talk today with Nino about some of the organizing around freeing political prisoners. Thanks for joining us, Nino.

NINO BROWN: Glad to be here.

BEN NORTON: So can you just talk about the state of political prisoners in the United States?

NINO BROWN: Well, currently I think, as you said, the United States has dozens of political prisoners that are, they’ve been incarcerated primarily because of their beliefs. They go against American capitalism, white supremacy, patriarcy, what have you. And they’re really soldiers from a past era movement. The Black Power movement, American Indian movement, Chicano movement, and so on and so forth. So today we have movements like Jericho that are trying to rekindle the general movement, consciousness around political prisoners, because we still have to deal with the fact that we have only 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated.

And those who are incarcerated from the past large social upheaval, we have just gems of knowledge, you know, important people to the movements and communities just rotting behind cages all because they chose to challenge American power, capitalism, racism, patriarchy, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier. Most recently Red Fawn. She was an indigenous woman who was entrapped by the FBI during the Standing Rock movement. So we have not only political prisoners who are, you know, older, elders, but we have new political prisoners entering the United States prison system every year.

BEN NORTON: Yeah. And The Real News, in fact, we work with Eddie Conway. He frequently, you know, produces shows and hosts for us here at The Real News. He was himself an incarcerated political prisoner for decades. Can you also talk about some of, some of the recently released prisoners like Herman Bell, and others who are still incarcerated, specifically from the black liberation movement?

NINO BROWN: So, we still have-. Well, recently, Herman Bell came out and was being harangued around the conditions of his release. About two, three years ago Sekou Odinga came out, was released. But we still have Jalil Muntaqim, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and many others from the Black Power movements that are still incarcerated.

And there are others in the broader social movements that we don’t hear about, like the past, Weather Underground, like David Gilbert. However, the list of new political prisoners, that’s yet to be, not explicated, but just itemized, you know. So I consider folks who were involved in the anti-Trump protests, who are facing charges, some of whom are incarcerated, as political prisoners. I may not know all their names, but the conditions of why they were incarcerated is inherently political because they chose to take a stand against what they see to be a rising fascist government movement. So-.

BEN NORTON: This is a reference to the J20 protest on January 20 of last year, 2017. There were more than 200 protesters who were all just rounded up, kettled by cops, and all charged with a variety of charges. Some of, some of, some major felonies that could have led to decades in prison. Some of the prisoners have had their, some of the detainees have had their charges thrown out. But there are still dozens more, and the trials are ongoing, with almost no media coverage. I think what’s fascinating as a journalist is we have all these corporate media outlets that have rebranded in the age of Trump as part of the Resistance, as anti-Trump. The Washington Post has “Democracy Dies in Darkness” on the top of its newspaper. But they have no interest in these activists who put their bodies on the line to protest Trump at the inauguration, and in some cases faced decades in prison.

NINO BROWN: Exactly right. So we’re trying to do with Jericho is really expand what do we mean by political prisoners, in addition to highlight the fact that the United States is not an exceptional nation, where it can point and wag its finger at other countries for having political prisoners, when they have prisoners right here in the United States. I know in Massachusetts we have several friends who are friends of Jericho who are facing repression inside prisons just for speaking up around their basic basic human rights and conditions of life.

BEN NORTON: Let’s talk more about this, because what’s interesting is there are two narratives, I think, that need to be debunked. One, that the U.S. doesn’t have political prisoners. But two, also that the conditions that these people are under are somehow humane. I mean, we’re talking about absolutely horrific, inhumane conditions that violate international law in every single way. Can you talk about some of the conditions that some of these prisoners in Massachusetts are forced to live under?

NINO BROWN: So an example that Jericho is really focusing on now is the prison in Norfolk. MCI Norfolk. So this is the same prison that Malcolm X went to when he was Detroit Red, a criminal, gangster, et cetera, and transformed his life, became Malcolm X. And fast forward to today. In 2011, all the state environmental agencies said that the water filtration system in Norfolk was defunct. And you know, the president said we’re going to fix it, we’re going to change it. 2017. Nothing has happened. The Boston Globe put out an exposé of what was going on in the prison after the prisoners began to agitate, organize around their own conditions, and expose the system, expose the prison system, for its inhumane treatment of them.

So what the prisoners are being subjected to is being, they’re drinking black-, are forced to drink and bathe in black and brown water, sometimes gray, that has high levels of [magnes], iron, and other harmful chemicals. [/b]All the while while these prisons are forced to labor, to work, otherwise they face the hole, solitary confinement. Another medieval form of torture, I would say. All the while they train these guard dogs, who are drinking clean, bottled water.

So here we have a clear example of just a gross violation of human rights where prisoners who are, you know, workers, a part of the working class, predominantly black or brown, agitating around their own conditions just to get clean water, and are being thrown into the hole, are being repressed. Some of our friends have written letters to them and had our letters intercepted.

BEN NORTON: That says everything. You-, it’s the symbol of that. You have human beings who are incarcerated, who can’t get clean water, but dogs, dogs that are being trained, get better quality water. Get water bottles. It just shows the priority.

NINO BROWN: Yeah, I mean, the United States doesn’t have, really, a priority over human life, period. Particularly when it comes to political prisoners, just because their, I think their existence and their fight pokes holes at the narrative of U.S. exceptionalism, or the fact that we have, or the idea that we have some sort of democratic system. I would say it’s more oligarchical. It’s more of an oligarchy with democratic trappings. But I think you’re exactly right. This is why we’re out here demanding that the prisons have clean, potable drinking water. Moreover, they have their visitation rights returned to them. There has been a shift to lower the number of visitors you can have and create more loopholes for prisoners to interact with their families, in addition to higher charges for calling in.

This is all on top of the fact that the prisons are outside of Boston, outside of the city. So not too many families have the resources to travel all the way to MCI Norfolk on a weekly basis just to engage in basic human interaction with their families.

BEN NORTON: Yeah, and let’s talk more about this. This is a huge racket. It doesn’t get much media coverage. You’re talking about how private corporations are profiting from providing, you know, food and other resources that should be provided but are not adequately provided to incarcerated people. So you know, you have companies that, where you can buy chips and other kinds of food, and they’re charging astronomical prices. We also have calls that are charged ridiculous rates per minute, and these incarcerated folks, their families and loved ones, have to raise large sums of money so that their incarcerated loved ones can try to get access to some food and some calls while corporations make a lot of money off of this.

NINO BROWN: Yeah. I mean, recently we tried to, we helped to start a campaign called the Deeper the Water campaign. One of our friends, Tim, he’s formerly incarcerated in MCI Norfolk. And once he got out, hit the ground running to organize to get clean water to his friends in prison in MCI Norfolk. So we organized a campaign to flood the canteen, to raise money so that the prisoners can buy the water in prison directly themselves. And you know, it seems a basic, you know, basic measure. However, once we started to do that, the prisoners who were buying the water inside with the money that we were able to send to them, they were being targeted for repression, you know, because the guards see a threat. And you know, when they see that people care about you on the outside, in that, you know, you still have some of your humanity left, and are still going to struggle, that’s a threat to them. It’s a threat to their profits, because they’ll be exposed in all sorts of lawsuits.

But I think exactly right, you hit the nail on the head in terms of how do they maintain the system. It’s a system of super exploitation and super profits. So you have the prisoners working for a dollar, two dollars, maybe, on top of being charged for purchasing things inside of the prison with their own money. And the recreational activities are not subsidized by the state, but they’re subsidized by the taxes that they levy off of these prisoners. So you have prisoners carrying the burden of their own incarceration financially, on top of families already being strained by this downward spiral of capitalism to provide resources to their loved ones in prison.

BEN NORTON: And then finally, I want to come to a conclusion here, but I want to take a step back and just talk about the prison-industrial complex in this country. And we both stress this, but again, the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, and 25 percent of incarcerated people on this planet. It’s just, just baffling to think of that parallel. And this is, this problem you’re talking about is not isolated to just Massachusetts. This is a problem everywhere, and it’s not just for incarcerated citizens. This is equally true for undocumented folks who are being forced into these facilities. They’re increasingly privatized.

So there’s a lot we can talk about, but I’m wondering if you can just wrap up here just reflecting on how the, how we should think about the American prison-industrial complex, American exceptionalism, and maybe you can even throw in, like, the war on drugs. Because many of these folks who are incarcerated, it’s not even necessarily for violent crimes. It’s for folks who were involved in trading drugs, or buying or using drugs. And we have this war on drugs that has led to a massive influx in this problem.

NINO BROWN: Yeah. I mean, I’ll start there with the, with the war on drugs. You know, it’s not a war on drugs. Drugs have continued to proliferate in our society to such a degree that we have, you know, such things as the opioid crisis. Drugs are still being used in prisons themselves, being used as weapons of war for these prison guards. So that whole veneer of a war on drugs is just that. An illusion. It’s really a war on, undeclared war, on black, indigenous, poor working class people, Chicano people, Latino people. And the way that they frame it as being around crime, it just distracts from the, from the focus, from the content of this being about social control. You know, that there was a counter-revolution following the radical ’60s and ’70s that saw, saw the need to suppress this radical, this radical uprising from the black population, from Latino populations, oppressed people generally. And prisons provide the perfect mechanism to maintain that social control in working class communities, but moreover to bolster capitalism, right.

So as we see globalization in the 1980s, and the really, the birth of neoliberalism, where production goes global, right, there’s this false notion that production has just disappeared. And it actually hasn’t. It’s shifted into prisons where prisoners are making anything from Nintendo 64 cartridges, to furniture, to things for Starbucks. You  know, belt buckles. So it’s a way for them, for the capitalists 🦀 💵 🎩 😈 👹 to super exploit prison labor while at the same time maintaining social control and pacification over the oppressed communities, whether it be through recidivism, militarized policing in the communities that these incarcerated folks come from. It’s really just a way to control labor, but also to make super profits, all the while claiming to be fighting drugs, claim to be fighting crime, and so on and so forth.

BEN NORTON: We’re going to take a pause here for our conversation. I’m here with Nino Brown. Nino’s an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition and Jericho. In the second part we’re going to continue our discussion on the prison-industrial complex in the United States.


https://therealnews.com/stories/incarceration-nation-how-us-political-prisoners-live-in-hellish-conditions
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Rattling the Bars: More Arrests And Jail Time

June 17, 2018

Executive Producer Eddie Conway uncovers why more arrests are not resulting in safer making communities.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Militarizing US Schools and Society Only Creates More Gun Violence and Police Brutality

July 4, 2018

TRNN’s Ben Norton continues his discussion with Boston teacher Nino Brown, of the ANSWER Coalition, on the links between US militarism, gun violence, and police brutality. Nino Brown argues militarizing schools and more heavily arming cops will only make the problem worse


https://therealnews.com/stories/militarizing-us-schools-and-society-only-creates-more-gun-violence-and-police-brutality
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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