JUSTICE IN AMERICAN - The "Driving While Black" Murder of Tyre Nichols

"Former Memphis police officers charged with murder in death of Tyre Nichols" PBS NewsHour 1/26/2023

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SUMMARY:  Five fired police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, have been charged with second-degree murder in a killing that has echoed across the country.  The victim, Tyre Nichols, died after a confrontation during a traffic stop earlier this month.  Attorneys for Nichols' family say body camera footage shows a police beating that lasted three minutes.  John Yang reports.

 

 

"Memphis prepares for protests as video of police beating Tyre Nichols is released" PBS NewsHour 1/27/2023

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SUMMARY:  Authorities in Memphis and other cities are urging peaceful protests as they prepare for the release of graphic video of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.  The 29-year-old died this month after police beat him for three minutes following a traffic stop.  The five fired police officers are charged with his murder.  Geoff Bennett spoke with Rev. Earle Fisher about the Memphis community's response.

 

 

"Tyre Nichols’ death puts spotlight back on excessive police use of force" PBS NewsHour 1/28/2023

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SUMMARY:  People across the nation are struggling to come to grips with the shocking display of excessive force by Memphis police in the beating death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols.  Thaddeus Johnson, professor of criminal justice and criminology at Georgia State University, joins John Yang to discuss the use of force in policing.

RACISM IN AMERICA - Art to Promote Diversity

"Florida school uses art displays from around the world to promote diversity and inclusion" PBS NewsHour 3/30/2022

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SUMMARY:  In Sarasota, Florida large scale artworks are being used to teach students about diversity, inclusion and mental health.  This comes at a time when there is growing controversy in the state, and school districts across the country, over how and whether to teach about racism in America.  Special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault went to see how the exhibit encourages inclusion.

RACE IN AMERICA - Talking With Kids

"How to talk to kids about race and racism" PBS NewsHour 10/9/2021

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SUMMARY:  As schools across the nation resumed in-person classes, teachers and students faced increased pressure from local school boards and organizations over how to teach and talk about race in the classroom.  Dana Crawford, a pediatric and clinical psychologist in New York who has developed approaches to reducing bias, prejudice, and racism, joins to share tips on how to talk to kids about race.

Diana Crawford:  ...racism is a socially transmitted disease.

U.S. MARINES - Major General Relieved of Command for Racial Slurs

 "Marine 2-Star Under Investigation for Racial Slur Has Been Relieved of Command" by Gina Harkins, Military.com 10/20/2020

COMMENT:  Being retired military (Navy 22yrs) I know regardless of result of the investigation this ends Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Neary's carrier.

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A Marine general officer was removed from a high-profile post overseeing troops in Europe and Africa as an investigation continues into claims that he used a degrading term about Black people in front of his troops.

Maj. Gen. Stephen Neary was relieved as head of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa on Monday by the service's top general.  Commandant Gen. David Berger lost trust and confidence in Neary's ability to lead, the service announced Tuesday.

Neary did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his relief.  He remains under investigation after reportedly using the N-word while his Marines were conducting physical training while listening to rap music outside the command's headquarters in Germany, Stars and Stripes reported earlier this month.

After the word was used in one of the songs, Neary asked junior Marines how they would feel if he said it, a lance corporal told the paper.  Black, white and Latino Marines "were jolted when the general said the word," according to Stripes, which spoke to individuals who witnessed the event.

"He lost respect right there," a Marine told the paper.

Though the investigation into the allegations remains ongoing, Capt. Joe Butterfield, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, said the probe's initial findings led Berger to lose confidence in Neary's ability to lead the command.

Neary assumed duties as commander of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa in July.  The command oversees hundreds of Marines assigned to locations across Europe and Africa.

Col. James Iulo will serve as the acting commander until a replacement is determined, according to the Marine Corps.  Information about Neary's current assignment was not immediately available.

The investigation follows a military-wide effort to end racism in the ranks as cities across the country continue seeing protests following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody earlier this year.

The Marine Corps in June became the first service to officially ban Confederate flag displays on base, and Berger said last month that signs of racism in the service must immediately be rooted out.

"Nothing crushes cohesion faster," he said at a September event hosted by Defense One.  "...  It just starts to tear apart the fabric at the tactical level.  We can't have that."

Defense Secretary Mark Esper in July outlined a series of steps each service should take to eliminate discrimination, prejudice and bias in the ranks.

"Hard work remains, and we will continue to learn as we move forward," Esper said.

AMERICAN POLITICS - Trump the Racists

This IS about people not understanding that racism can, and often is, inconscient.  People who have racist tenancies often are not aware of them.  It is others, looking from the 'outside,' that see the racism.

"The political fallout from Trump’s racist tweets" PBS NewsHour 7/15/2019

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SUMMARY:  President Trump is defending racist tweets targeting four House freshmen, all women of color.  Three of the four lawmakers had recently testified about their visits to crowded border detention facilities, lamenting what they saw there.  But despite condemnation from congressional Democrats, some Republicans and even the British Prime Minister, Trump isn’t expressing remorse.  Yamiche Alcindor reports.

"Why Rep. Gallego says Republicans should be ‘ashamed’ of silence over Trump tweets" PBS NewsHour 7/15/2019

REMINDER:  Three of the 4 women are born Americans, one is a Naturalized Citizen.

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SUMMARY:  A political firestorm has erupted over tweets from President Trump telling four American women of color in the House to “go back” to where they came from.  Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz) joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what Trump is trying to achieve with his inflammatory rhetoric, why Republicans who don’t condemn his tweets “should be ashamed" and how the President has “broken the border.”

"Trump’s tweets aren’t racist, argues Rep. Comer" PBS NewsHour 7/15/2019

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SUMMARY:  Washington is reeling as a result of racist tweets President Trump made Sunday, in which he blasted four women of color in the House and said they should return to where they came from, although all four are American citizens.  Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) joins Judy Woodruff to explain why a “frustrated”  Trump’s comments are “overblown” and how he knows his constituents aren’t offended by them.

"How Trump’s controversial tweets are exposing a party divide on race" PBS NewsHour 7/16/2019

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SUMMARY:  Lawmakers continue to react to racist tweets President Trump posted Sunday about four women of color in the House.  So far, most Republicans have defended the President or tried to reframe the conversation as about ideology rather than race, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to officially condemn Trump’s remarks.  Lisa Desjardins reports and joins Judy Woodruff to discuss an ongoing divide.

"Trump’s racist tweets and the ‘politics of distraction’" PBS NewsHour 7/17/2019

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SUMMARY:  President Trump’s attacks on women of color in the House have launched fierce debate about whether his meaning was racist.  There is no doubt, though, that his words echo threats and insults that have been lobbed against perceived outsiders in America for generations.  To explore the painful history, William Brangham talks to the University of Minnesota’s Erika Lee, and UC-Berkeley’s Ian Haney Lopez the author of "Merge Left."

"Former Sen. Jeff Flake on why Republicans aren’t disavowing Trump’s ‘awful’ words" PBS NewsHour 7/18/2019

My answer, power.  Trump's win gave the Republicans more power to remake America in their despicable image.

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SUMMARY:  It's been a tumultuous week in Washington, amid fallout from President Trump’s racist attacks on four members of Congress, all women of color.  On Thursday, Trump held a rally in North Carolina, where his words -- and the crowd’s -- took the controversy to a new level.  Former Arizona Senator and CBS Contributor Jeff Flake [R-Ariz] joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what he calls Trump’s "awful" rhetoric and the Republican response.

DESPICABLE - Arpaio Pardon (Updated)

Prof that Trump is a racist.

"Arpaio pardon hurts GOP relations with Trump" PBS NewsHour 8/26/2017

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SUMMARY:  President Donald Trump's pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who aggressively pursued undocumented immigrants, exacerbated an increasingly tenuous relationship with national Republicans.  NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Jeff Greenfield joins Hari Sreenivasan from Santa Barbara, California, on what the latest rift means for the party and country.

"What the Arpaio pardon reveals about Trump's take on the rule of law" PBS NewsHour 8/28/2017

His all powerful Majesty, King Trump, who is the ONLY law (at least in his own warped mind).

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SUMMARY:  President Trump's Friday night pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- convicted of defying a court order to stop targeting undocumented immigrants -- drew swift criticism, even from fellow Republicans.  What makes the controversial pardon so noteworthy?  John Yang is joined by Brian Kalt of Michigan State University to discuss its significance.

SUPREMACIST GROUPS - White Nationalists

aka "In Trump's Basket of Deplorables"

"Why white nationalists hear a political ally in Donald Trump" PBS NewsHour 10/26/2016

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SUMMARY:  White nationalist groups are nothing new to the U.S.  But in recent years, their numbers have grown, drawing whites who feel marginalized in today's America.  The NewsHour's P.J. Tobia visits a white separatist community in Indiana to understand why they're supporting Donald Trump this election.  Sensitivity Warning:  This report contains graphic images and symbols that are widely considered to represent hate speech.

P.J. TOBIA (NewsHour):  Late summer, in the hills of East Tennessee, a small group of white power activists hold a meeting.  There's merchandise, music, and a rewriting of history.

MAN:  Despite the mythology, Russian Jews were never oppressed in any way.

P.J. TOBIA:  Later, the group goes to a nearby town for a rally, in the center of it all, Matthew Heimbach.

MATTHEW HEIMBACH, Traditionalist Worker Party:  Because a white homeland shall be our homeland.

P.J. TOBIA:  Just 25 years old, the Southern Poverty Law Center has called Heimbach the face of a new generation of white nationalists.

In 2015, he founded the Traditionalist Worker Party.  They're white separatists who want distinct homelands in the U.S. for whites and blacks.  They want Jews out of the country entirely.

Are you guys racists?

MATTHEW HEIMBACH:  The definition of racist is thrown around all the time in America, and it's used almost exclusively just to determine any white people that want to be able to advocate for their best interests.

P.J. TOBIA:  But there were Nazis and all kinds of very strident anti-minority propaganda.  Anyone with a Nazi symbol on them is going to be considered a racist, if not racially insensitive.

MATTHEW HEIMBACH:  And so our movement is moving towards being a European-style nationalist movement.  And I respect all my comrades from other organizations.  They might take a little bit of a different presentation than we do.  And you can see what direction our movement is moving in.  And I'm happy to be a part of that.

Read as, "I'm happy to be a raciest Nazi."

RACISM IN AMERICA - View by Ta-Nehisi Coates

"Ta-Nehisi Coates on discussing racism directly, honestly" PBS NewsHour 7/2/2015

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Tonight, we close with another Brief But Spectacular, our series of interviews featuring insights from artists, authors, leaders and thinkers, telling us briefly about their passions.

Tonight, producer Steve Goldbloom speaks to Atlantic magazine national correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates about the role of police in African-American communities.

TA-NEHISI COATES, The Atlantic:  I was born September 30, 1975, in West Baltimore.

I grew up in the 1980s and the early ’90s in a very, very violent time.  And I love journalism, because, you know, it gives you a license to answer, you know, all the questions that you have, you know, in the back of your mind.

What people perceive you as is an expert, but, in fact, what you are, if you’re doing journalism right, is you’re an actual student.  When you write about the impact of white supremacy in this country, there’s a great deal of energy spent on making sure that people who are different than you understand what you’re saying.

And I actually think that actually corrupts language, because you end up softening things.  You actually end up insulting people’s intelligence.  I’m really not thinking about how to get the average white reader to see my perspective.  I’m trying to communicate as directly and forcefully and honestly as possible.

All of these cases where we’re seeing this black-lives-matter movement come up, there has been a great deal of focus on what’s being called police reform.  My argument is, in fact, we have a much, much deeper problem, and that is that we are asking the police to do certain things that maybe they shouldn’t do.

Take that horrible video you see where Walter Scott is shot in the back by an officer.  And one of the reasons why Walter Scott was running is because he had been brought up before on child support cases.  But what should we actually be doing about this problem of child support?

Is jail actually the answer?  Should we actually be jailing people for this?  Freddie Gray is another case that you have a situation where a gentleman is in an area that we designate as high crime.  He makes the mistake of making eye contact with a police officer, and then he runs.

The reason why Freddie Gray was arrested was because we had made a decision that we’re going to pursue our drug policy in a certain way in that area.  Why did we have police there in the first place?  Why did we have a situation in which we decided the police will be able to arrest people effectively, or stop and search somebody effectively, because they look suspicious?

Mental health, mental health is probably the biggest one.  We have a situation in which, if you have any sort of mental health issue in this country, and you have an interaction with a police officer, you know, you might well end up dead.

Police officers walk around with guns.  Do we want our mental health workers walking around with guns?  There are other ways that we can think about doing this, but we have decided not to.

The expectation that, you know, catching things on tape is going to save us is, you know, I would say, deeply flawed.  Even sometimes when things are caught on tape, like Eric Garner’s killing here in New York, that doesn’t necessarily mean that anything is going to happen.

You really can’t be an African-American in this country and see, say, the Walter Scott video and be completely amazed.  You just don’t have the luxury of living that way.  You have had interactions with police.  You know people who bad things have happened to just for being who they are.

My name is Ta-Nehisi Coates.  This is my brief, but spectacular take on the legacy of white supremacy and its continuing function in our society today.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  And you can get a first look at our series Brief But Spectacular every Thursday on the PBS NewsHour page on Facebook.