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Indybay Feature
The ‘Karmic Justice’ of Lovelle Mixon’s Act
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The cops called Lovelle Mixon (who killed 4 Oakland police department cops) “a cold-hearted individual who doesn’t have any regard for human life.” Well, the cops should know: they too, often against minorities, behave exactly the same way.
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The cops called Lovelle Mixon (who killed 4 Oakland police department cops) “a cold-hearted individual who doesn’t have any regard for human life.” Well, the cops should know: they too, often against minorities, behave exactly the same way.
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Berkeley Daily Planet
"The ‘Karmic Justice’ of Lovelle Mixon’s Act"
by Joseph Anderson
Thursday April 2, 2009 (print edition)
Wednesday April 01, 2009 (online version)
This perspective might be very hard for many sociopolitically naive white people to read. But it’s very important to understand the sheer depth of negative feelings that many people of color (even those with no criminal record) have against the police. This is due to lifelong and often unpredictable, almost always potentially life-threatening, negative experiences (from petty to lethal), that they or their loved ones and friends, as people of color, have had from the police.
Most people of color know that the cops, and police departments as institutions, historically represent the street enforcement arm of white American racism. Indeed, the police were born out of the white slave patrols.
People of color and conscious white people have seen how cops have wantonly brutalized many members of the Black and Brown community—the police murder of Oscar Grant (who was brutally assaulted by more than just the one potentially legal “sacrifice” cop who murdered him) being just the latest in a long series of notorious cases that have become epidemic in the Bay Area and all across the nation. Such is the arrogance of police power that sometimes this police abuse reaches other communities: Asians, members of the Arab community (recently in San Francisco, women and children at a peaceful political march), and peaceful political protesters of all ethnicities.
Relatively recently, in Oakland, 11 cops were fired for falsifying a whole series of search warrants to bust into people’s homes. And the OPD Chief of Internal Affairs was put on leave, pending an investigation for his having viciously beaten a Latino suspect in his custody to death years ago.
In the weeping and mourning over the deaths of four cops, how soon we forget the Oakland Riders case: the political damage control performed there kept the focus of the investigation just on those specific corrupt street cops, but did nothing to clean up the department in whose culture and corruption they were spawned. It is said that Oakland alone in the Bay Area pays out (at least averaged over time) about $2 million a year in police brutality cases—and many more millions soon yet to come. Surely that is money that could be spent on education and job training.
American flags were officially flown at half-staff for those killed cops—summarily tried, sentenced and executed in the streets, just like they do with people of color. But no flags were flown at half-staff over City Hall by the Black mayor of Oakland for Oscar Grant or any of the other innocent minority victims of police summary executions. Mayor Ron Dellums (and Congresswoman Barbara Lee) took a week before he (or she) said anything about Grant, and even then only in the most indirect and tepid terms, and Dellums only after his finally being confronted by the people in front of City Hall. (See YouTube videos: Davey D on Ron Dellums; Ron Dellums Gets Confronted; Oscar Grant Tribute; and Jerry Amaro.)
Yet Dellums immediately, personally and vociferously, condemned the killings of the cops, and without any prompting by citizen demands. (And at least one of the cops’ family still wouldn’t let Dellums speak at the funeral. Good.) So much for “the new age of Obama” and “Change we can believe in!” So much for the illusion, mindlessly repeated—wherever there is a camera or a microphone—by some of those docilized middle- and upper-class Negroes, who always want to gain white people’s approval as “the good Blacks,” that “all human life is equal!”
“The good Blacks” (especially top Black politicians) will, at best, once again, call for some kind of touchy-feely police “sensitivity training” and “dialogue”— but never for the best training: quick effective prosecutions, sound convictions, and serious criminal sentences against rogue and killer cops. But since when, right from this country’s founding when it was genocidally and otherwise horrendously established upon generations of millions of Red, Black, Yellow and Brown lives, has all life ever “been equal” in the history of Amerikkka?
At least a couple of the TV local news stations have shown a servile Rev. Philip Ellinberg, some negro (probably what we Blacks call “a jackleg / bootleg preacher” since he seems to be absent from any telephone or online directory listings) who was supposed to (and apparently did) sing for Massa at the killed cops’ funeral. Where was he at Oscar Grant’s funeral—or those of any other police-executed minorities? Where is he at the Oscar Grant Movement meetings held almost every Saturday afternoon in Oakland at the Olivet Missionary Baptist Church?
Where were the flags at half-staff, much less the state and mass media-covered funeral, for Oscar Grant and all the other unarmed, innocent victims of killer cops’ vigilantism and street executions? All Bay Area people have to do is to look at all the names on the boards of the Stolen Lives Project (started by Danny Garcia) and its portable mural of names: men, women (even grandmothers), and kids shot to death (sometimes in a hailstorm of bullets, even against innocent people just minding their own business), choked to death, smothered to death, truncheoned to death, and, of course, sustain-tasered to death—and not those unhandcuffed, little, quick, light two-second tap shocks cops sometime demonstrate on another cop (with two cops on both sides carefully catching the one as he buckles) for television PR purposes (“See? It doesn’t really hurt.”). Do you think that any of the Bay Area cities would even fly their flags at half-staff for just one day for, collectively, ALL of those victims of police executions?
This is especially noteworthy given that a cop who was wounded (but not killed) by Mixon was Sgt. Pat Gonzales, who narrowly escaped karmic justice, but who, as a repeat offender, last shot a young (Black) Gary King Jr. in the back and killed him. The media lauds this cop while his repeated brutality and violence are ignored. And cops up in Sonoma county even went and gratuitously killed the adopted Black kid (Jeremiah Chass) of an affluent white married couple, right in their home driveway, who made the mistake of calling the cops to help calm down their very well-liked but sometimes emotionally distraught son. About a thousand people attended his memorial, but you didn’t see that on TV.
There’s a sarcastic old saying, known among Blacks, “When the White Man is hurt, evvverybody must cry.” But millions of people aren’t cryin’ over four killed cops —including even many politically conscious white people—and AREN’T MOURNING along with that state mass propaganda funeral. While the cops and the media come up with suspiciously last-minute (and technically unconfirmed) stories to try to tell us just “how bad” Lovelle Mixon was (how about research into those dead cops’ background to see how abusive and dirty they were?), many of us see it as karmic justice, regardless of what person killed the four (and almost five!) cops, all in a brief afternoon’s work.
Lovelle Mixon’s name will be legendary in the Bay Area—long after people forget the names of the four cops he killed in one afternoon. And it’s karmic justice that just as many Blacks in America have been murdered by cops during a “routine” traffic stop, these cops were killed during a “routine” traffic stop.
The cops called Lovelle Mixon “a cold-hearted individual who doesn’t have any regard for human life.” Well, the cops should know: they too, often against minorities, behave exactly the same way.
So, now, as far as many, especially, Black and Brown Bay Area people feel, there’s finally some karmic justice.
___________________________________________________________
Berkeley resident Joseph Anderson is a longtime progressive activist.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-04-02/article/32613?headline=The-Karmic-Justice-of-Lovelle-Mixon-s-Act
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Berkeley Daily Planet
"The ‘Karmic Justice’ of Lovelle Mixon’s Act"
by Joseph Anderson
Thursday April 2, 2009 (print edition)
Wednesday April 01, 2009 (online version)
This perspective might be very hard for many sociopolitically naive white people to read. But it’s very important to understand the sheer depth of negative feelings that many people of color (even those with no criminal record) have against the police. This is due to lifelong and often unpredictable, almost always potentially life-threatening, negative experiences (from petty to lethal), that they or their loved ones and friends, as people of color, have had from the police.
Most people of color know that the cops, and police departments as institutions, historically represent the street enforcement arm of white American racism. Indeed, the police were born out of the white slave patrols.
People of color and conscious white people have seen how cops have wantonly brutalized many members of the Black and Brown community—the police murder of Oscar Grant (who was brutally assaulted by more than just the one potentially legal “sacrifice” cop who murdered him) being just the latest in a long series of notorious cases that have become epidemic in the Bay Area and all across the nation. Such is the arrogance of police power that sometimes this police abuse reaches other communities: Asians, members of the Arab community (recently in San Francisco, women and children at a peaceful political march), and peaceful political protesters of all ethnicities.
Relatively recently, in Oakland, 11 cops were fired for falsifying a whole series of search warrants to bust into people’s homes. And the OPD Chief of Internal Affairs was put on leave, pending an investigation for his having viciously beaten a Latino suspect in his custody to death years ago.
In the weeping and mourning over the deaths of four cops, how soon we forget the Oakland Riders case: the political damage control performed there kept the focus of the investigation just on those specific corrupt street cops, but did nothing to clean up the department in whose culture and corruption they were spawned. It is said that Oakland alone in the Bay Area pays out (at least averaged over time) about $2 million a year in police brutality cases—and many more millions soon yet to come. Surely that is money that could be spent on education and job training.
American flags were officially flown at half-staff for those killed cops—summarily tried, sentenced and executed in the streets, just like they do with people of color. But no flags were flown at half-staff over City Hall by the Black mayor of Oakland for Oscar Grant or any of the other innocent minority victims of police summary executions. Mayor Ron Dellums (and Congresswoman Barbara Lee) took a week before he (or she) said anything about Grant, and even then only in the most indirect and tepid terms, and Dellums only after his finally being confronted by the people in front of City Hall. (See YouTube videos: Davey D on Ron Dellums; Ron Dellums Gets Confronted; Oscar Grant Tribute; and Jerry Amaro.)
Yet Dellums immediately, personally and vociferously, condemned the killings of the cops, and without any prompting by citizen demands. (And at least one of the cops’ family still wouldn’t let Dellums speak at the funeral. Good.) So much for “the new age of Obama” and “Change we can believe in!” So much for the illusion, mindlessly repeated—wherever there is a camera or a microphone—by some of those docilized middle- and upper-class Negroes, who always want to gain white people’s approval as “the good Blacks,” that “all human life is equal!”
“The good Blacks” (especially top Black politicians) will, at best, once again, call for some kind of touchy-feely police “sensitivity training” and “dialogue”— but never for the best training: quick effective prosecutions, sound convictions, and serious criminal sentences against rogue and killer cops. But since when, right from this country’s founding when it was genocidally and otherwise horrendously established upon generations of millions of Red, Black, Yellow and Brown lives, has all life ever “been equal” in the history of Amerikkka?
At least a couple of the TV local news stations have shown a servile Rev. Philip Ellinberg, some negro (probably what we Blacks call “a jackleg / bootleg preacher” since he seems to be absent from any telephone or online directory listings) who was supposed to (and apparently did) sing for Massa at the killed cops’ funeral. Where was he at Oscar Grant’s funeral—or those of any other police-executed minorities? Where is he at the Oscar Grant Movement meetings held almost every Saturday afternoon in Oakland at the Olivet Missionary Baptist Church?
Where were the flags at half-staff, much less the state and mass media-covered funeral, for Oscar Grant and all the other unarmed, innocent victims of killer cops’ vigilantism and street executions? All Bay Area people have to do is to look at all the names on the boards of the Stolen Lives Project (started by Danny Garcia) and its portable mural of names: men, women (even grandmothers), and kids shot to death (sometimes in a hailstorm of bullets, even against innocent people just minding their own business), choked to death, smothered to death, truncheoned to death, and, of course, sustain-tasered to death—and not those unhandcuffed, little, quick, light two-second tap shocks cops sometime demonstrate on another cop (with two cops on both sides carefully catching the one as he buckles) for television PR purposes (“See? It doesn’t really hurt.”). Do you think that any of the Bay Area cities would even fly their flags at half-staff for just one day for, collectively, ALL of those victims of police executions?
This is especially noteworthy given that a cop who was wounded (but not killed) by Mixon was Sgt. Pat Gonzales, who narrowly escaped karmic justice, but who, as a repeat offender, last shot a young (Black) Gary King Jr. in the back and killed him. The media lauds this cop while his repeated brutality and violence are ignored. And cops up in Sonoma county even went and gratuitously killed the adopted Black kid (Jeremiah Chass) of an affluent white married couple, right in their home driveway, who made the mistake of calling the cops to help calm down their very well-liked but sometimes emotionally distraught son. About a thousand people attended his memorial, but you didn’t see that on TV.
There’s a sarcastic old saying, known among Blacks, “When the White Man is hurt, evvverybody must cry.” But millions of people aren’t cryin’ over four killed cops —including even many politically conscious white people—and AREN’T MOURNING along with that state mass propaganda funeral. While the cops and the media come up with suspiciously last-minute (and technically unconfirmed) stories to try to tell us just “how bad” Lovelle Mixon was (how about research into those dead cops’ background to see how abusive and dirty they were?), many of us see it as karmic justice, regardless of what person killed the four (and almost five!) cops, all in a brief afternoon’s work.
Lovelle Mixon’s name will be legendary in the Bay Area—long after people forget the names of the four cops he killed in one afternoon. And it’s karmic justice that just as many Blacks in America have been murdered by cops during a “routine” traffic stop, these cops were killed during a “routine” traffic stop.
The cops called Lovelle Mixon “a cold-hearted individual who doesn’t have any regard for human life.” Well, the cops should know: they too, often against minorities, behave exactly the same way.
So, now, as far as many, especially, Black and Brown Bay Area people feel, there’s finally some karmic justice.
___________________________________________________________
Berkeley resident Joseph Anderson is a longtime progressive activist.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-04-02/article/32613?headline=The-Karmic-Justice-of-Lovelle-Mixon-s-Act
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an african person was hrassed by white youth in a subaru type station wagon in bay area.yelled epithets out window and drove away.they were straight blondish athletic types. maybe 19 years old.peoples fears are surfacing.fight back,
Just what is it about the plain and obvious truth that makes a fair number of caucasians lose their cookies, anyway?
That all said, good article -- once again, on the mark. Keep it up, people - who knows, some of it may even sink in a bit. Perhaps.
That all said, good article -- once again, on the mark. Keep it up, people - who knows, some of it may even sink in a bit. Perhaps.
Why don't you talk about the astronomically high number of "persons of color" who are killed mainly by other "persons of color". The number of police involved shootings are tiny by comparison. Just look at DOJ and other data on crime. This person's trying to paint a picture of police going around and offing people willy-nilly, with of course no corroborating evidence. But, what can't be disputed is the horrific number of people killed by gang turf wars, botched drug deals, stick-up attempts and all manner of criminal activity. Just recently in downtown Oakland a "person of color" owned convenience store was robbed twice in the span of two days, an employee was shot and wounded, not by the police, but by a criminal. Of course you won't talk about that.
Not sure which "you" you're referring to here, but in my experience, that does get talked about. I'm guessing that you don't agree with what gets discussed, which is fine - but don't make it like folks are side-stepping the issue.
Please explain how the children of the OPD officers - who were after all fellow human beings - deserved the 'karmic justice' of having their fathers murdered?
Is this some kind of karmic metaphor to balance the scales with the poor Hate-elle Nixon whose father seems to be non-existent? Is that why he carried a gun and had access to a semi-automatic weapon - to compensate for the lack of a father in his life? Can we now expect the children of the murdered po-leece to become psychokillers also - continuing the fatal turning of the karmic wheel?
you live by the gun, you die by the gun. It has nothing to do with cosmic psychobabble mythology. Then again, the Sun had just entered Aries - the sign of the Ram and always a time of aggression and war - and several planets were in opposition, forming a fateful negative energy and sparking those already inclined to violence to act out. If only the OPD had consulted an astrologer, or Mr. Anderson re: karmic law....
Is this some kind of karmic metaphor to balance the scales with the poor Hate-elle Nixon whose father seems to be non-existent? Is that why he carried a gun and had access to a semi-automatic weapon - to compensate for the lack of a father in his life? Can we now expect the children of the murdered po-leece to become psychokillers also - continuing the fatal turning of the karmic wheel?
you live by the gun, you die by the gun. It has nothing to do with cosmic psychobabble mythology. Then again, the Sun had just entered Aries - the sign of the Ram and always a time of aggression and war - and several planets were in opposition, forming a fateful negative energy and sparking those already inclined to violence to act out. If only the OPD had consulted an astrologer, or Mr. Anderson re: karmic law....
"And cops up in Sonoma county even went and gratuitously killed the adopted black kid (Jeremiah Chass) of an affluent white married couple, right in their home driveway, who made the mistake of calling the cops to help calm down their very well-liked but sometimes emotionally distraught son. About a thousand people attended his memorial, but you didn’t see that on TV. "
Dear Mr. Anderson,
Please allow me to comment on your inclusion of the death of my nephew Jeremiah Chass and to clarify a few of your points.
Jeremiah was the child of a white mother and a black father. He was biracial, not only black but white as well. I can't remember ever referring or treatment as a "black" kid. His parents are far from affluent, they are middle class working folks like most of us. Adopted??? Yes. Jeremiah's biological father died when he was very young. His mom remarried and J was adopted by his step-dad. He had 16 years with his devoted mother, later, his step father and brother.
Jeremiah was in crisis the morning he was killed. He was not "sometimes emotionally distraught"- this was a first time event. Prior to that morning, he suffered from normal teenage angst. We will never know what was the cause, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that there were never drugs or alcohol. The family did not even have Tylenol in the home.
Jeremiah Chass was killed on March 12, 2007. To this day, the claim is that it was a justified and even a "heroic" act by the Sonoma County Sheriff Department. The fact that the Department refuses to take any responsibility or to have the decency to sincerely apologize to the family is tragic.
Yes, there were over 1,000 friends that attended Jeremiah's memorial service. It took 3 hours to get through all the stories and comments from his classmates and friends on how he touched their lives. He WAS well liked, kind, gentle, and with a spirit and wisdom well beyond his years. And yes, you are right....we won't see this on TV.
"Karmic Justice" is all that the 2 cops got for their acts on March 12, 2007. These 2 men must live with the knowledge of what really happened and will face God at their end.
RIP J
Dear Mr. Anderson,
Please allow me to comment on your inclusion of the death of my nephew Jeremiah Chass and to clarify a few of your points.
Jeremiah was the child of a white mother and a black father. He was biracial, not only black but white as well. I can't remember ever referring or treatment as a "black" kid. His parents are far from affluent, they are middle class working folks like most of us. Adopted??? Yes. Jeremiah's biological father died when he was very young. His mom remarried and J was adopted by his step-dad. He had 16 years with his devoted mother, later, his step father and brother.
Jeremiah was in crisis the morning he was killed. He was not "sometimes emotionally distraught"- this was a first time event. Prior to that morning, he suffered from normal teenage angst. We will never know what was the cause, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that there were never drugs or alcohol. The family did not even have Tylenol in the home.
Jeremiah Chass was killed on March 12, 2007. To this day, the claim is that it was a justified and even a "heroic" act by the Sonoma County Sheriff Department. The fact that the Department refuses to take any responsibility or to have the decency to sincerely apologize to the family is tragic.
Yes, there were over 1,000 friends that attended Jeremiah's memorial service. It took 3 hours to get through all the stories and comments from his classmates and friends on how he touched their lives. He WAS well liked, kind, gentle, and with a spirit and wisdom well beyond his years. And yes, you are right....we won't see this on TV.
"Karmic Justice" is all that the 2 cops got for their acts on March 12, 2007. These 2 men must live with the knowledge of what really happened and will face God at their end.
RIP J
Dear Louise,
(And you may always call me Joseph.)
Thank you very much for your thoughtful and heartfelt response. Thank you very much for taking the time to 'write' it. It moved me greatly.
And thank you for correcting my "facts". My apologies to you and his parents, other loved ones and friends.
Since I wasn't there, my understanding, or gleaning, was taken from what looked like a credible (and rather long and otherwise surprisingly good) mainstream media story (that actually went into the positive aspects of Jeremiah's background), as well as a few others. Although, of course, I (especially as a longtime progressive activist) realize that we can't always assume the facts in those stories are necessarily all true. I was trying to think of a word, and I used the word "sometimes", because I didn't want readers to assume that Jeremiah was characteristically/constantly "emotionally distraught" and that being so "emotionally distraught" was who he was.
(And when most parents at least first adopt kids, their economic situation at the time is usually pretty stable and even comfortable, even if they are "middle-class" -- which is actually a fairly wide economic range. Some middle-class people have a nice home, with a nice front lawn with a flower garden and a backyard with a fournished deck and a big barbeque grill, a two-car garage, maybe even a nice van, a three or four cars filled driveway when the kids are older, family vacations at least once every other/few year/s, an always packed refigerator, nice Christmases, or Chanukahs, or Bar Mitzvahs, with lots of presents, both parents with good stable jobs or even, financially, the mom able to stay home and take care of the kids when they're younger, and they all often even live in suburban communities in nice school districts. And the kids are college-bound one day. That's what my parents were and are like. Compared to many people, especially these days, my parents are 'RRRICH'!!: all their basic needs and comforts are met. That, and a loving family, and/or good caring friends [because some people just aren't lucky to have all good family relationships], and at least reasonable health, is all that's really important. But, of course, I shouldn't assume that everyone who lives in Sonoma/Napa valley is affluent.)
Jeremaih seemed like such a conscious, sensitive and even socially gifted person -- and I assume that in this world, with its human predicament of senseless oppression and war, sensitive conscious people (especially genius/gifted people) are at least sometimes 'emotionally distraught'. Probably in my commentary I should have so-called "factually" written "once emotionally distraught", since I didn't know he was "in crisis".
I don't want to go into it publicly, but my situation (while my background is not exactly the same) is closer to Jeremiah than it is further. Close enough that I feel I have a kindred spirit 'kinship' with Jeremiah. So, while I never had a particular "crisis", such as you factually allude to, like Jeremiah had on the last morning/afternoon of his life, I felt like (just reading about it) I was there in the eyes of Jeremiah and his parents. And I can only imagine the horror his parents must have felt when the (actually) Sonoma County sheriff's deputies (but I just said "cops", for brief) -- who his parents called for *HELP* -- essentially gunned down and killed their son right in their home driveway.
In fact, one of the things I've said in my past radio interviews/comments is that,
"If you are Black..., and you have a problem..., for which you call the police..., you will then have *TWO* problems..., the 2nd one potentially and unpredictably *LETHAL*."
And it is often true that when Black/Brown people call the police for help, they often end up being treated like criminals -- or especially their distraught, or otherwise "in crisis", loved ones (be it young, old, male, female, whether its because they're upset, depressed, on drugs, off medication, have a psychological dysfunction, inebriated, whatever...) end up being "legally" murdered -- DEAD -- by the cops 15-20 minutes after the cops arrive. These stories are so sadly and tragically repetitive.
In fact, if people live in a neighborhood/community where they CAN call at least a couple/few/several their more calm trustworthy level headed neighbors, INSTEAD OF CALLING THE COPS, when someone's loved one is distraught (for whatever reason) or "in crisis", to help calm and/or restrain someone's loved one, then that's what they should do -- as my always calm father and one of his friends was called from clear across town to help calm down and restrain a distraught or "in crisis" Black woman. Because any trusted neighbors/friends of yours are going to approach the situation with SINCERE CONCERN, CARE & RESPECT -- SOMETHING THE COPS WILL *NOT* DO WITH PEOPLE OF COLOR.
THE COPS (IF YOU'RE A PERSON OF COLOR) JUST COME TO __*END* "THE PROBLEM"__. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. PERIOD.
-- AND TO GET BACK TO THE DONUT SHOP, OR GO COLLECT EXORTION MONEY OR STEAL FROM THEIR STREET HO'S OR DRUG DEALERS, OR, ESPECIALLY UP IN SONOMA/NAPA (where there's not as much to do anyway as in a big city), GO PULL OVER CUTE YOUNG (typically white) WOMEN ON PRETEXTUAL "TRAFFIC STOPS" TO 'CHAT 'EM UP' AND 'HIT ON' THEM and find out where they lived, etc. (used to regularly happen to a young cute white female friend of mine up in Sonoma 'all the time' when she commuted back and forth from there to UC Berkeley -- she'd just say, "Don't tell me...: it looked like one of my brake lights were out, right?"), OR GO HAVE A TRYST WITH SOME WOMAN WHILE ON DUTY.
As for Jeremiah being "biracial, not only black but white as well": you should understand two things about the history of this country:
(1) African Americans are the most ethnically diverse minority in this country -- and are the original multicultural people here in the Americas. Many, if not most, native-born African Americans whose ancestors go back to slavery, especially from the Southeast, are, of course, African, often part Native American, often part Irish, and from the North (or from the Caribbean!) are often part Jewish, often part Latino (especially in the Northeast and Southwest), and other ethnic groups -- the intermixing having come over different times and in different places. So, most of we African Americans are "part something" in our ancestry.
(2) that in the history of this country, and still today in most parts of this country (especially outside of very ethnically diverse states like California, where what one ethnically wants to call themselves is often socially respected, and where white people are actually now a MINORITY), THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANY SUCH THING AS "BIRACIAL" -- NOT LEGALLY, NOT SOCIALLY -- AND THAT'S HOW THE POLICE, ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, STILL SEE IT TOO.
SO, AS FAR AS THE _PIGS_ WERE CONCERNED, JEREMIAH WAS *BLACK* -- OR WHATEVER (LATINO, ARAB, SOUTH ASIAN, EAST ASIAN, MUSLIM, ETC.) HE MIGHT HAVE LOOKED LIKE, VS. WHITE.
Or, put it another way, Jeremiah may have been "not only black but white as well", BUT IT'S THE *BLACK* HALF THAT THE COPS MURDEROUSLY DIDN'T CARE ABOUT -- AND ALL THEY THOUGHT WAS, "LET'S KILL THAT NIGGER AND GET THIS OVER WITH!!" -- EVEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS PARENTS!! -- EVEN RIGHT IN HIS PARENT'S HOME DRIVEWAY!! -- THAT EVERY DAY THEY HAVE TO SEE AND REMEMBER THE VERY SPOT WHERE THAT'S WHERE THEIR SON WAS GUNNED DOWN AND KILLED -- BY THE STATE.
AND WHAT DO THE PIGS ALWAYS CALL IT (EVEN AFTER EVERY INVESTIGATION STAMPS IT)?: _"JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE"_.
When I came the Bay Area -- and while the Bay Area certainly isn't perfect by any means -- I noticed that, by *comparison* with most of the rest of this country (say, outside of the very multicultural and international Manhattan), everyone, generally speaking, was comparatively much more, ethnically/"racially", socially tolerant, or even accepted, or even *celebrated*, and respected -- except from the behavior of the cops. That negative police behavior seems to be a general constant everywhere in this country when it comes to people of color (even sometimes from people of color police -- or as Ice Cube /NWA rapped in "FUCK THA POLICE!", "Black po-lice showin' out fo' the whyte cops!."
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"Yes, there were over 1,000 friends that attended Jeremiah's memorial service. It took 3 hours to get through all the stories and comments from his classmates and friends on how he touched their lives. He WAS well liked, kind, gentle, and with a spirit and wisdom well beyond his years."
That Jeremiah touched so very many people is just beautiful beyond words...
I'd say that he and his family were at least spiritually and socially "rich"...
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""Karmic Justice" is all that the 2 cops got for their acts on March 12, 2007. These 2 men must live with the knowledge of what really happened and will face God at their end."
Especially when those killer cops saw -- and it was not just _a propaganda pageant_, like the OPD mass-propaganda funeral in Oakland (where almost no one from their neighborhood patrols showed up), with even Canadian Mounties flown in to artificially boost the numbers, most of the cops at that OPD staged propaganda funeral were not even from anywhere near the Bay Area -- but instead how many people deeply cared about and were actually touched by Jeremiah Chass ...
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please explain
by reality check
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 9:52 AM:
"Please explain how the children of the OPD officers - who were after all fellow human beings - deserved the 'karmic justice' of having their fathers murdered?"
YEAH, I'LL "PLEASE EXPLAIN" TO YOU, NAIVE WHITE BOY...:
THEY CAN GAIN SOLACE IN THE FACT THAT THEIR COP PIG DADS WON'T NEEDLESSLY GO KILL -- *STREET EXECUTE* -- OR BE ITCHING TO NEEDLESSLY KILL -- OR HELP COVER UP THE NEEDLESS KILLING BY COPS -- OR STAMP THE KILLINGS "JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE" -- ESPECIALLY AGAINST *INNOCENT* PEOPLE (BUT EVEN AGAINST SUSPECTS: COPS DON'T HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO ISSUE THE DEATH PENALTY) -- *EVER* AGAIN!
AND THAT'S ASIDE FROM THE GRATUITOUS STREET BEATINGS, TASERINGS AND TORTURE -- LET ALONE DISRESPECT AND PUPOSEFUL HUMILIATION -- BY COPS.
NOT TO MENTION THE "LEGAL" THEFT, BY COPS, OF VICTIM'S/SUSPECT'S CARS, MONEY, AND OTHER PROPERTY.
And as far as many conscious people (Black, Latino, Asian and white) are concerned, Sgt. Pat Gonzales (lastly, the murderer of Gary King Jr) should have been the *first* one killed. And if I could have gotten away with putting that in my commentary and still had it published, I would have.
AND WE DON'T KNOW HOW LOVELLE MIGHT HAVE BEEN PROVOKED. TOO MANY COPS SEEM HAPPY TO PROVOKE EVERYONE ELSE BLACK OR BROWN.
In my adult life I've always lived in some of the wealthiest municipalities in the country -- and cops have tried to provoke me walking with an Il Fornaio pastry bag in one hand, a big thick blue book on the Korean legal system in my other hand, and my office clothes on, or going to and from the university. And that's just one of my events -- only NOT REMARKABLE only because plenty of other Blacks (and other people of color, male and female) can tell you all sorts of remarkable stories too (like just the few I alluded to in my formal commentary.
THE PIGS EVERY DAY LET PEOPLE OF COLOR KNOW: "WE COPS ARE NOT HERE TO MAKE YOUR LIFE OR COMMUNITY *BETTER*". SO DON'T EVEN CALL US -- OR WE'LL SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS."
So, when the PIGS start acting like human beings, many people of color and conscious white people might start regarding them as human beings.
I know someone who worked with Sgt. Dan Sakai, and they told me that he was "a cowboy", "an adrenaline junkie", and thought of himself as "a supercop". So, Sakai and his partner -- thinking they were some TV 'supercops' -- where they were going to go rush in and "Let's go kill that nigger!" -- rushed into the building, violating all tactical protocol -- so they got *themselves* killed (and the OPD department *knows* this) -- where they should have realized that Lovelle Mixon was just WAITING for them -- that Lovelle Mixon (who had been trying to get a job, whose parole officer kept missing very important employment appointments, while Lovelle was trying to get his life together) was going to commit "Revolutionary Suicide".
THAT'S WHAT YOU CAN GO TELL THOSE CHILDREN OF THE COPS.
-
by reality check
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 9:52 AM:
"Please explain how the children of the OPD officers - who were after all fellow human beings - deserved the 'karmic justice' of having their fathers murdered?"
YEAH, I'LL "PLEASE EXPLAIN" TO YOU, NAIVE WHITE BOY...:
THEY CAN GAIN SOLACE IN THE FACT THAT THEIR COP PIG DADS WON'T NEEDLESSLY GO KILL -- *STREET EXECUTE* -- OR BE ITCHING TO NEEDLESSLY KILL -- OR HELP COVER UP THE NEEDLESS KILLING BY COPS -- OR STAMP THE KILLINGS "JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE" -- ESPECIALLY AGAINST *INNOCENT* PEOPLE (BUT EVEN AGAINST SUSPECTS: COPS DON'T HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO ISSUE THE DEATH PENALTY) -- *EVER* AGAIN!
AND THAT'S ASIDE FROM THE GRATUITOUS STREET BEATINGS, TASERINGS AND TORTURE -- LET ALONE DISRESPECT AND PUPOSEFUL HUMILIATION -- BY COPS.
NOT TO MENTION THE "LEGAL" THEFT, BY COPS, OF VICTIM'S/SUSPECT'S CARS, MONEY, AND OTHER PROPERTY.
And as far as many conscious people (Black, Latino, Asian and white) are concerned, Sgt. Pat Gonzales (lastly, the murderer of Gary King Jr) should have been the *first* one killed. And if I could have gotten away with putting that in my commentary and still had it published, I would have.
AND WE DON'T KNOW HOW LOVELLE MIGHT HAVE BEEN PROVOKED. TOO MANY COPS SEEM HAPPY TO PROVOKE EVERYONE ELSE BLACK OR BROWN.
In my adult life I've always lived in some of the wealthiest municipalities in the country -- and cops have tried to provoke me walking with an Il Fornaio pastry bag in one hand, a big thick blue book on the Korean legal system in my other hand, and my office clothes on, or going to and from the university. And that's just one of my events -- only NOT REMARKABLE only because plenty of other Blacks (and other people of color, male and female) can tell you all sorts of remarkable stories too (like just the few I alluded to in my formal commentary.
THE PIGS EVERY DAY LET PEOPLE OF COLOR KNOW: "WE COPS ARE NOT HERE TO MAKE YOUR LIFE OR COMMUNITY *BETTER*". SO DON'T EVEN CALL US -- OR WE'LL SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS."
So, when the PIGS start acting like human beings, many people of color and conscious white people might start regarding them as human beings.
I know someone who worked with Sgt. Dan Sakai, and they told me that he was "a cowboy", "an adrenaline junkie", and thought of himself as "a supercop". So, Sakai and his partner -- thinking they were some TV 'supercops' -- where they were going to go rush in and "Let's go kill that nigger!" -- rushed into the building, violating all tactical protocol -- so they got *themselves* killed (and the OPD department *knows* this) -- where they should have realized that Lovelle Mixon was just WAITING for them -- that Lovelle Mixon (who had been trying to get a job, whose parole officer kept missing very important employment appointments, while Lovelle was trying to get his life together) was going to commit "Revolutionary Suicide".
THAT'S WHAT YOU CAN GO TELL THOSE CHILDREN OF THE COPS.
-
-
by Louise Chmela
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 10:02 AM:
"Jeremiah was the child of a white mother and a black father."
THE (PROBABLY ALL WHITE?) SHERIFF DEPUTIES WERE PROBABLY ALSO MAD WHEN THEY CAME TO THE HOUSE OF A *BLACK* MAN MARRIED TO A *WHITE* WOMAN WITH A *BIRACIAL* SON AND WANTED TO _PUNISH_ THEM ALL BY USING THE LEAST LITTLE EXCUSE/PRETEXT TO *KILL* THEIR SON.
-
by Louise Chmela
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 10:02 AM:
"Jeremiah was the child of a white mother and a black father."
THE (PROBABLY ALL WHITE?) SHERIFF DEPUTIES WERE PROBABLY ALSO MAD WHEN THEY CAME TO THE HOUSE OF A *BLACK* MAN MARRIED TO A *WHITE* WOMAN WITH A *BIRACIAL* SON AND WANTED TO _PUNISH_ THEM ALL BY USING THE LEAST LITTLE EXCUSE/PRETEXT TO *KILL* THEIR SON.
-
They're just part of the right-wing racist peanut gallery who loves to show up and take advantage of the openness of the site -- calling them naive is giving them too much credit. I'd comment on your article, but there's really nothing I can offer up more than to keep on speaking truth to power; it's really strong work, and definitely needs to be said and said again, as loudly as your lungs will carry. Keep up the fight my friend, and keep writing!
...when the white people in this country, and that means all white people including the mf racist cops, move beyond skin color. Anderson or any other African-American using the term "white boy' to, in effect defend himself, is different than a a white person using the term black boy to denigrate a black person. The white person is part of the system of white supremacy. Anderson is fighting white supremacy. If whtie supremacy ends and JA still used the term, then, maybe, he could be reprimanded. But until and unless the power relations become equal, don't criticise aperson ofcolor for defending himself.
That is an incredibly sick and heartless response. No, the children of the cops did not deserve to have their fathers' killed any more than Hate-L Nixon's family deserved to have him killed - although one could argue that they were more responsible for his actions than the children of the police were for their fathers'. You are naive to think otherwise.
If Karma had anything to do with the deaths of the police, then it obviously applies to Mixon as well, a point you conveniently omit. Naive people look for supernatural explanations, and apply them with prejudice to cover their own naivete.
I am far from naive nor a right winger and have no love for the OPD. The point I was making was that your argument is stupid. Your response that now at least these innocent children "can gain solace in the fact that their cop dads won't go *needlessly kill* again" further undermines your argument and destroys any credibility you think you have. Now you are implying that there is a time when the pigs killing someone is not 'needless.'
>>They can gain solace in the fact that their cop dads won't go *needlessly kill* again.
by Joseph Anderson
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 3:44 PM
please explain
by reality check
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 9:52 AM:
"Please explain how the children of the OPD officers - who were after all fellow human beings - deserved the 'karmic justice' of having their fathers murdered?"
YEAH, I'LL "PLEASE EXPLAIN" TO YOU, NAIVE WHITE BOY...: <
If Karma had anything to do with the deaths of the police, then it obviously applies to Mixon as well, a point you conveniently omit. Naive people look for supernatural explanations, and apply them with prejudice to cover their own naivete.
I am far from naive nor a right winger and have no love for the OPD. The point I was making was that your argument is stupid. Your response that now at least these innocent children "can gain solace in the fact that their cop dads won't go *needlessly kill* again" further undermines your argument and destroys any credibility you think you have. Now you are implying that there is a time when the pigs killing someone is not 'needless.'
>>They can gain solace in the fact that their cop dads won't go *needlessly kill* again.
by Joseph Anderson
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 3:44 PM
please explain
by reality check
Monday Apr 6th, 2009 9:52 AM:
"Please explain how the children of the OPD officers - who were after all fellow human beings - deserved the 'karmic justice' of having their fathers murdered?"
YEAH, I'LL "PLEASE EXPLAIN" TO YOU, NAIVE WHITE BOY...: <
First of all, thank you "a-feminist" and "deanosor".
Second, "deanosor" is intellectually and morally right: " any other African-American using the term "white boy" to, in effect defend himself, is different than a a white person using the term black boy to denigrate a black person."
Let me further break it down intellectually:
When a Black person casually uses the term "white boy", or even generalizes about white people, like, "White people won't recognize [such-and-such]", or "That's how white people act", that Black person is referring to "white" as, or part of, or reflective of, A SOCIOPOLITICALLY AND INSTITUTIONALLY _RACIST SYSTEM OF POWER_.
OR, as *I* regard and put it, _"white" is an *ATTITUDE*_. And usually a "white" attitude or person that's not only ARROGANT &/or NAIVE, but also socially & politically *CLUELESS* (and in the unfortunately deleted representative case, a typically sociopolitically NAIVE one) -- and oriented to SOCIOPOLITICALLY "WHITE" ways of thinking -- *NOT* per se A COLOR. --An *ATTITUDE* that the (unfortunately) deleted comment poster (who was undoubtedly the same one as "reality check", Monday Apr 6th, 9:52AM, above) amply exhibited --like being automatically pre-occupied with the kids of *extremely occasionally* killed racist cops than with the innocent (or unarmed) Black/Brown/Native/Asian/Latino/Arab *DEAD VICTIMS* of assorted racist cops. You know, lots of evil people have kids -- Mussolini had kids: do we feel sorry for them too? Maybe the kids should have told dad to stop being a cop oppressing people in entirely another neighborhood in enitrely another city, far away from the typically ALL-WHITE -- "not a nigger in sight" -- cop resident and retirement neighborhoods/towns that those cops come from.
WHYTE BOY: "No, the children of the cops did not deserve to have their fathers' killed any more than Hate-L Nixon's family deserved to have him killed - although one could argue that they were more responsible for his actions than the children of the police were for their fathers'."
Look in the quote at your implicitly RACIST and BIGOTTED *language* CLUELESS WHYTE BOY. And how the F*CK do *you* FACTUALLY know what "one [i.e., WHYTE BOY] could argue" about any BLACK kids of Lovelle Mixon vs. the WHITE kids of the 4 killed cops? Do you personally know ANY of them?
AND I AIN'T LOOKIN' FOR ANY "CREDIBILITY" FROM CLUELESS WHYTE BOYS!! ... I DON'T GIVE A F*CK WHAT YOU THINK.
My ultimate message is *BRIEF*...! And I literally wear it on my T- ...: _*NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE*_...!!
Thank goodness that not all white people are as CLUELESS as you (so-called "reality check") are -- and my formal commentary has been extremely well-received by even many conscious white people. So, many people are awesomely glad that someone was in a position to say what I publicly and formally wrote. I'm not going to sit around and wait for someone like *you* ("reality-LESS") to finally understand...
{ AND NOTE THAT THE *WHITE* GUY WHO KILLED THREE COPS IN PENNSYLVANIA -- OR EVEN THE WHITE TEENAGERS WHO KILLED *FAR MORE* PEOPLE (*KIDS*!) IN COLUMBINE -- WEREN'T CALLED ANY OF THE NAMES THAT MIXON WAS CALLED.
AND WHITE SOCIETY IMMEDIATELY STARTED LOOKING FOR EVEN HUMAN REASONS FOR THE WHITES ACTS OF EVEN MASS MURDER -- EVEN FOR TIMOTHY MCVEIGH (ONCE THEY FOUND OUT HE WASN'T AN ARAB):
"DID HE LOSE HIS JOB...?; YOU KNOW THESE ARE HARD TIMES...; DID HIS WIFE OR GIRLFRIEND BREAK UP WITH HIM...?; DID PEOPLE MAKE FUN OF HIM/THEM...?; ETC." THEN WHITE SOCIETY LOOKED FOR A *SOCIAL* REASON -- "HOW IS AMERICAN *SOCIETY* OR *SOCIAL* CONDITIONS RESPONSIBLE TOO?" }
So, if you were around any people of color, you might even hear one/some of them refer to even some Native American, Black, Latino, Asian, Arab figure as behaving/thinking *"WHITE"* -- meaning that figure is oriented to SOCIALLY , POLITICALLY &/or CULTURALLY *DOMINANT* "WHITE" ways or values of thinking, and diminishes/devalules/dismisses those of their own culture. The African scholar Frantz Fanon called such people the more intellectual category, "Black Anglo-Saxons". The colloquial name attributed is Indian/Black/Mexican/Asian/Arab "Uncle Tom".
UC Berkeley's so-called 'black' professor John McWhorter is A PERFECT EXAMPLE -- backed by the white conservative/right-wing Manhattan Institute. (UC Berkeley being "a liberal university" is wayyy over-rated. Remember, John Yoo, "the torture professor", another example, was appointed here at the law school.) Other perfect examples would be Shelby Steele at San Jose State -- amazingly Shelby is the sociopolitical opposite of his culturally and politically conscious identical twin brother [so much for identical twins feeling the same thing] Professor Claude Steele at Stanford University. D'Nesh D'Souza would be the South Asian correlate. Henry Louis "Skippy" Gates, chair of African American Studies at Harvard, would certainly be another one (although, for white people, Gates has the cover of being a Black literature anthologist).
But if a white person were to use the HISTORICALLY LOADED term "black boy", then that white person is *reminding* that Black man of the white person's political dominance in that/our racist system of power.
There are some whites who are somewhat 'dark-skin' -- as dark-skin as some very light-skin Blacks -- especially when those whites go out and 'bake' themselves on the beach or at the pool (not to mention sometimes thicken their lips, for those who have the money) to get more of our Black/Brown-skin *flava* (and features). And there are some Blacks who could pass for white (in either skin color and even hair texture, which can be relaxed/straightened), but historically were legally and socially classified as "Negro/Black", or otherwise ethnically identified as (especially if they culturally grew up as) African American (even if they are black-white "biracial" or even mostly of ethnic European heritage). Actually, our society is replete with the fact that "white" and "black" (or even "Asian" and "Latino/Hispanic") -- or the concept or race itself -- only have an incidental coincidence with skin color per se.
"Indian/Black/Asian/Hispanic" and "white", for example, were not only defined *differently* from time to time in this country, but also from place to place in this country, and even from place to place (like from state to state, or Notheast Coast vs. West Coast) during the *same* time in this country -- let alone defined differently in different European countries (including in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in then Apartheid South Africa).
I have not just mucho "had white friends" all my life (well, since kindergarten), but *LIVED* with legally so-called white people -- along with other ethnicities and internationalities -- roommates and housemates (male and female) -- all my adult life (from college on) -- and, once, with an out-of-town white friend's family for a year or so. I'd bet my very life that some NAIVE WHYTE BOY who calls *me* a "racist" can't say that! So, I can't be *too much* of a "whitey-hatin'", "Mau-Mau", Mandingo racist. Thankfully, my white friends and housemates are not very "white", if at all. And, by the way, a white female current housemate of mine, as well as other white friends, would call "reality check" *worse than* just some "naive white boy". So, I'm actually being POLITE!
-
Second, "deanosor" is intellectually and morally right: " any other African-American using the term "white boy" to, in effect defend himself, is different than a a white person using the term black boy to denigrate a black person."
Let me further break it down intellectually:
When a Black person casually uses the term "white boy", or even generalizes about white people, like, "White people won't recognize [such-and-such]", or "That's how white people act", that Black person is referring to "white" as, or part of, or reflective of, A SOCIOPOLITICALLY AND INSTITUTIONALLY _RACIST SYSTEM OF POWER_.
OR, as *I* regard and put it, _"white" is an *ATTITUDE*_. And usually a "white" attitude or person that's not only ARROGANT &/or NAIVE, but also socially & politically *CLUELESS* (and in the unfortunately deleted representative case, a typically sociopolitically NAIVE one) -- and oriented to SOCIOPOLITICALLY "WHITE" ways of thinking -- *NOT* per se A COLOR. --An *ATTITUDE* that the (unfortunately) deleted comment poster (who was undoubtedly the same one as "reality check", Monday Apr 6th, 9:52AM, above) amply exhibited --like being automatically pre-occupied with the kids of *extremely occasionally* killed racist cops than with the innocent (or unarmed) Black/Brown/Native/Asian/Latino/Arab *DEAD VICTIMS* of assorted racist cops. You know, lots of evil people have kids -- Mussolini had kids: do we feel sorry for them too? Maybe the kids should have told dad to stop being a cop oppressing people in entirely another neighborhood in enitrely another city, far away from the typically ALL-WHITE -- "not a nigger in sight" -- cop resident and retirement neighborhoods/towns that those cops come from.
WHYTE BOY: "No, the children of the cops did not deserve to have their fathers' killed any more than Hate-L Nixon's family deserved to have him killed - although one could argue that they were more responsible for his actions than the children of the police were for their fathers'."
Look in the quote at your implicitly RACIST and BIGOTTED *language* CLUELESS WHYTE BOY. And how the F*CK do *you* FACTUALLY know what "one [i.e., WHYTE BOY] could argue" about any BLACK kids of Lovelle Mixon vs. the WHITE kids of the 4 killed cops? Do you personally know ANY of them?
AND I AIN'T LOOKIN' FOR ANY "CREDIBILITY" FROM CLUELESS WHYTE BOYS!! ... I DON'T GIVE A F*CK WHAT YOU THINK.
My ultimate message is *BRIEF*...! And I literally wear it on my T- ...: _*NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE*_...!!
Thank goodness that not all white people are as CLUELESS as you (so-called "reality check") are -- and my formal commentary has been extremely well-received by even many conscious white people. So, many people are awesomely glad that someone was in a position to say what I publicly and formally wrote. I'm not going to sit around and wait for someone like *you* ("reality-LESS") to finally understand...
{ AND NOTE THAT THE *WHITE* GUY WHO KILLED THREE COPS IN PENNSYLVANIA -- OR EVEN THE WHITE TEENAGERS WHO KILLED *FAR MORE* PEOPLE (*KIDS*!) IN COLUMBINE -- WEREN'T CALLED ANY OF THE NAMES THAT MIXON WAS CALLED.
AND WHITE SOCIETY IMMEDIATELY STARTED LOOKING FOR EVEN HUMAN REASONS FOR THE WHITES ACTS OF EVEN MASS MURDER -- EVEN FOR TIMOTHY MCVEIGH (ONCE THEY FOUND OUT HE WASN'T AN ARAB):
"DID HE LOSE HIS JOB...?; YOU KNOW THESE ARE HARD TIMES...; DID HIS WIFE OR GIRLFRIEND BREAK UP WITH HIM...?; DID PEOPLE MAKE FUN OF HIM/THEM...?; ETC." THEN WHITE SOCIETY LOOKED FOR A *SOCIAL* REASON -- "HOW IS AMERICAN *SOCIETY* OR *SOCIAL* CONDITIONS RESPONSIBLE TOO?" }
So, if you were around any people of color, you might even hear one/some of them refer to even some Native American, Black, Latino, Asian, Arab figure as behaving/thinking *"WHITE"* -- meaning that figure is oriented to SOCIALLY , POLITICALLY &/or CULTURALLY *DOMINANT* "WHITE" ways or values of thinking, and diminishes/devalules/dismisses those of their own culture. The African scholar Frantz Fanon called such people the more intellectual category, "Black Anglo-Saxons". The colloquial name attributed is Indian/Black/Mexican/Asian/Arab "Uncle Tom".
UC Berkeley's so-called 'black' professor John McWhorter is A PERFECT EXAMPLE -- backed by the white conservative/right-wing Manhattan Institute. (UC Berkeley being "a liberal university" is wayyy over-rated. Remember, John Yoo, "the torture professor", another example, was appointed here at the law school.) Other perfect examples would be Shelby Steele at San Jose State -- amazingly Shelby is the sociopolitical opposite of his culturally and politically conscious identical twin brother [so much for identical twins feeling the same thing] Professor Claude Steele at Stanford University. D'Nesh D'Souza would be the South Asian correlate. Henry Louis "Skippy" Gates, chair of African American Studies at Harvard, would certainly be another one (although, for white people, Gates has the cover of being a Black literature anthologist).
But if a white person were to use the HISTORICALLY LOADED term "black boy", then that white person is *reminding* that Black man of the white person's political dominance in that/our racist system of power.
There are some whites who are somewhat 'dark-skin' -- as dark-skin as some very light-skin Blacks -- especially when those whites go out and 'bake' themselves on the beach or at the pool (not to mention sometimes thicken their lips, for those who have the money) to get more of our Black/Brown-skin *flava* (and features). And there are some Blacks who could pass for white (in either skin color and even hair texture, which can be relaxed/straightened), but historically were legally and socially classified as "Negro/Black", or otherwise ethnically identified as (especially if they culturally grew up as) African American (even if they are black-white "biracial" or even mostly of ethnic European heritage). Actually, our society is replete with the fact that "white" and "black" (or even "Asian" and "Latino/Hispanic") -- or the concept or race itself -- only have an incidental coincidence with skin color per se.
"Indian/Black/Asian/Hispanic" and "white", for example, were not only defined *differently* from time to time in this country, but also from place to place in this country, and even from place to place (like from state to state, or Notheast Coast vs. West Coast) during the *same* time in this country -- let alone defined differently in different European countries (including in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in then Apartheid South Africa).
I have not just mucho "had white friends" all my life (well, since kindergarten), but *LIVED* with legally so-called white people -- along with other ethnicities and internationalities -- roommates and housemates (male and female) -- all my adult life (from college on) -- and, once, with an out-of-town white friend's family for a year or so. I'd bet my very life that some NAIVE WHYTE BOY who calls *me* a "racist" can't say that! So, I can't be *too much* of a "whitey-hatin'", "Mau-Mau", Mandingo racist. Thankfully, my white friends and housemates are not very "white", if at all. And, by the way, a white female current housemate of mine, as well as other white friends, would call "reality check" *worse than* just some "naive white boy". So, I'm actually being POLITE!
-
But if a white person were to use the *HISTORICALLY LOADED* term "black boy" -- BESIDES GETTTING A PUNCH IN THE FACE OR BUSTED A CAP IN HIS ASS -- then that white person is *reminding* that Black man of the white person's political dominance in that/our racist system of power.
You know, lots of evil people have kids -- Mussolini had kids: do we feel sorry for them too?
I.E., BECAUSE THEIR EVIL DADDY WAS KILLED.
-
I.E., BECAUSE THEIR EVIL DADDY WAS KILLED.
-
Mr. Anderson, with all due respect, I believe that it is you who is naive. But before I tell you why, I’d like to comment on your essay.
I am white but I do understand the depth of your people’s negative feelings toward the police. Some criticism of the Oakland Police is justified, some is not. But the general distrust of the Police is not hard to understand.
Your assertion that police departments represent the institutionalized arm of white American racism is baseless, despite the fact that there are examples of deplorable behavior by police, some of which is racially motivated. At it’s best, the Police represent the institutionalized arm of law enforcement, and the representatives of the powerful in conflict with the weak and poor, at worst. You know, History is full of examples of abusive police behavior not involving African Americans. And the idea that the police were born out of white slave patrols is just laughable.
The Officers killed March 21st were not tried, sentenced nor executed. They were murdered. The man who murdered them was not a representative of justice, he was a criminal. The man who killed Oscar Grant also appears to be a murdering criminal. Therefore, Lovelle Mixon seems to have that in common with the worst element of the police you revile and nothing in common with the justice you claim to seek. In truth, it is far more common to find young black men summarily tried sentenced and executed by other young black men than by the police.
You ask, where were the flags at half staff for civilian victims of violent death? On April 25th , 2008, for one. On that day the names of 26 children and teenagers who died violent deaths in Alameda County in 2007 were added to a memorial plaque and the flag was flown at half staff in their honor at the Alameda County Administration building in downtown Oakland and at all public buildings in Alameda County, including Berkeley. It is ironic that you were unaware of this.
Frankly, I cannot find one useful, actionable point in your entire essay. I see that “Berkeley resident Joseph Anderson is a longtime progressive activist.” I wonder, what have you accomplished? Nearly six hundred homicides have occurred in Oakland during the last five years. In nearly five hundred of those cases the victims have shared ALL of these characteristics: Black, under age 30, on parole or probation, killed by hand gun, on a public street, between midnight and 4am. What are longtime progressive activists like you doing about that?
Here is why you are naive. Because today the real enemy of poor, urban people of color is not racism, but indifference. And here you are wrestling straw men like Jim Crow and preaching to the choir about racial injustice, while the train is leaving the station.
I am white but I do understand the depth of your people’s negative feelings toward the police. Some criticism of the Oakland Police is justified, some is not. But the general distrust of the Police is not hard to understand.
Your assertion that police departments represent the institutionalized arm of white American racism is baseless, despite the fact that there are examples of deplorable behavior by police, some of which is racially motivated. At it’s best, the Police represent the institutionalized arm of law enforcement, and the representatives of the powerful in conflict with the weak and poor, at worst. You know, History is full of examples of abusive police behavior not involving African Americans. And the idea that the police were born out of white slave patrols is just laughable.
The Officers killed March 21st were not tried, sentenced nor executed. They were murdered. The man who murdered them was not a representative of justice, he was a criminal. The man who killed Oscar Grant also appears to be a murdering criminal. Therefore, Lovelle Mixon seems to have that in common with the worst element of the police you revile and nothing in common with the justice you claim to seek. In truth, it is far more common to find young black men summarily tried sentenced and executed by other young black men than by the police.
You ask, where were the flags at half staff for civilian victims of violent death? On April 25th , 2008, for one. On that day the names of 26 children and teenagers who died violent deaths in Alameda County in 2007 were added to a memorial plaque and the flag was flown at half staff in their honor at the Alameda County Administration building in downtown Oakland and at all public buildings in Alameda County, including Berkeley. It is ironic that you were unaware of this.
Frankly, I cannot find one useful, actionable point in your entire essay. I see that “Berkeley resident Joseph Anderson is a longtime progressive activist.” I wonder, what have you accomplished? Nearly six hundred homicides have occurred in Oakland during the last five years. In nearly five hundred of those cases the victims have shared ALL of these characteristics: Black, under age 30, on parole or probation, killed by hand gun, on a public street, between midnight and 4am. What are longtime progressive activists like you doing about that?
Here is why you are naive. Because today the real enemy of poor, urban people of color is not racism, but indifference. And here you are wrestling straw men like Jim Crow and preaching to the choir about racial injustice, while the train is leaving the station.
.
DOES CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA LEE SPEAK FOR US?
(OR, ARE ALL LIVES TRULY "EQUAL"?)
______________________________________________
"Does Barbara Lee Still Speak for You and Me?"
By Henry Norr
Wednesday March 25, 2009
Berkeley Daily Planet newspaper
Berkeley, CA
[exceprt]
When four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, Rep. Barbara Lee wasted no time before speaking out. The very next day -- on a Sunday, no less -- she issued not one but two press releases expressing condolences to the victims' families and support for their colleagues. The following day she took to the floor of the House and for more than six minutes paid tribute to these "fallen heroes," as she put it. The press statements promptly appeared on her official website, and a video clip of her remarks to the House was posted to her YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, she wasn't nearly as quick to respond to some other recent incidents of violence that have concerned many of her constituents:
• Oscar Grant. After the BART police murdered Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station, Lee made no public statement about the incident for more than a week. Only after hundreds of her constituents had taken to the streets to express their outrage -- not only at the killing, but also at the establishment's demonstrable indifference to it -- did she issue a statement declaring that her "thoughts and prayers are with the family of Oscar Grant as they grieve the loss of their loved one."
Even then, she and her staff don't seem to have made much of an effort to get her statement out. They didn't even bother to post it on her website -- as of March 25, it's still not there -- and the only place Google finds the text is in a Bay Area News Group blog, not even in the Oakland Tribune or other East Bay papers. (On Jan. 14 Lee issued another statement saying she was "pleased" at the arrest of former officer Johannes Mehserle. That one did make it to her website.)
http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-03-26/article/32553?headline=Does-Barbara-Lee-Still-Speak-for-You-and-Me-
___________________________________________________________________
Henry Norr is a former journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle
DOES CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA LEE SPEAK FOR US?
(OR, ARE ALL LIVES TRULY "EQUAL"?)
______________________________________________
"Does Barbara Lee Still Speak for You and Me?"
By Henry Norr
Wednesday March 25, 2009
Berkeley Daily Planet newspaper
Berkeley, CA
[exceprt]
When four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, Rep. Barbara Lee wasted no time before speaking out. The very next day -- on a Sunday, no less -- she issued not one but two press releases expressing condolences to the victims' families and support for their colleagues. The following day she took to the floor of the House and for more than six minutes paid tribute to these "fallen heroes," as she put it. The press statements promptly appeared on her official website, and a video clip of her remarks to the House was posted to her YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, she wasn't nearly as quick to respond to some other recent incidents of violence that have concerned many of her constituents:
• Oscar Grant. After the BART police murdered Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station, Lee made no public statement about the incident for more than a week. Only after hundreds of her constituents had taken to the streets to express their outrage -- not only at the killing, but also at the establishment's demonstrable indifference to it -- did she issue a statement declaring that her "thoughts and prayers are with the family of Oscar Grant as they grieve the loss of their loved one."
Even then, she and her staff don't seem to have made much of an effort to get her statement out. They didn't even bother to post it on her website -- as of March 25, it's still not there -- and the only place Google finds the text is in a Bay Area News Group blog, not even in the Oakland Tribune or other East Bay papers. (On Jan. 14 Lee issued another statement saying she was "pleased" at the arrest of former officer Johannes Mehserle. That one did make it to her website.)
http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-03-26/article/32553?headline=Does-Barbara-Lee-Still-Speak-for-You-and-Me-
___________________________________________________________________
Henry Norr is a former journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle
Yo C.T.!
I already see that you're one of those liberal white racists that always want to avoid the issue of race.
So, I'm going to waste very little time on you -- ONLY WHAT IT TAKES TO SHOW YOU FO' THA *FFOOOLL* THAT YOU *ARE*.
First, let me tell you: GO READ A _BOOK_. Read authoritative ones by someone WHITE -- if that will help you more.
Second, you can start with the book (since you undoubtedly value the words of white people more than from people of color, so maybe this will intellectually move you) from an INTELLIGENT *white* guy: _OUR ENEMIES IN BLUE: POLICE AND POWER IN AMERICA_, by Kristian Williams_.
And when I wrote in my formal commentary that, "police departments as institutions, historically represent the street enforcement arm of white American racism", in fact the police and the KKK and the racist White Citizens' Councils were usually one and the same or greatly overlapped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for your idioticly evasive non sequitur, "In truth, it is far more common to find young black men summarily tried sentenced and executed by other young black men than by the police..."
IN EVERY SO-CALLED "RACE", THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE WITHIN THEIR "RACE" WHO KILL EACH OTHER THAN DO THE POLICE [OR OTHERS OUTSIDE THAT "RACE"] --- SSSO *WWHHATT*...!?
ALL THAT SHOWS IS THAT PEOPLE TEND TO COMMIT CRIMES -- OF ALL SORTS -- AGAINST THOSE NEAR THEM, AROUND THEM, OR AGAINST THOSE THEY HAVE GREATER ACCESS TO.
SO WHAT RACIAL GROUP DOESN'T KILL MORE MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN RACIAL GROUP THAN OUTSIDERS? -- INCLUDING WHITES!
BUT THOSE MURDERERS ARE *NOT* FUNDED BY THE TREASURY OF THE STATE, ARMED-TO-THE-TEETH WITH EVERYTHING THEY COULD WANT, GIVEN EVEN HELICOPTERS AND ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIERS, PROVIDED A COMMAND-&-CONTROL RADIO TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM, GIVEN COMPUTER ACCESS TO OUR RECORDS, HAVE THE POWER TO ARREST, AND CONSTITUTIONALLY EMPOWERED BY THE _**STATE**_
--AND ARE NOT GIVEN *STATE FUNERALS* WITH ALL THEIR KIND FLOWN IN AT STATE EXPENSE, WITH THE MOTORCADE HIGHWAYS CLOSED, IF THEY THEMSELVES ARE KILLED.
HOW MANY ORDINARY CITIZENS, OR GANGS (BESIDES THE *OTHER* GANG IN BLUE, BUT WEARING A BADGE) CAN BE CAUGHT EXECUTING SOMEONE *POINT BLANK* ON EVEN *DOZENS* OF VIDEO CAMERAS, LET ALONE IN A HAILSTORM OF BULLETS, AND GET *ZZZERO*, OR EXTREMELY LIGHT (AND SERVED IN A COUNTRY CLUB PRISON), SENTENCES?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "Frankly, I cannot find one useful, actionable point in your entire essay."
I don't doubt that at all, given your moronic 'intelligence', but I'm glad you were "frank" about your mental limitations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "You ask, where were the flags at half staff for civilian victims of violent death?"
NO I *DIDN'T* ASK THAT (speaking of trying to finagle and sleight strawman concoctions).
Speaking of frank mental limitations, obviously YOU CAN'T READ.
I CLEARLY WROTE: "But no flags were flown at half-staff over City Hall by the Black mayor of Oakland for Oscar Grant or any of the other innocent minority VICTIMS OF *POLICE* SUMMARY EXECUTIONS. ... Where were the flags at half-staff, much less the state and mass media-covered funeral, for Oscar Grant and all the other unarmed, innocent VICTIMS OF KILLER *COPS'* VIGILANTISM AND STREET EXECUTIONS?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "On April 25th , 2008, for one. On that day the names of 26 children and teenagers who died violent deaths in Alameda County in 2007 were added to a memorial plaque and the flag was flown at half staff in their honor at the Alameda County Administration building in downtown Oakland and at all public buildings in Alameda County, including Berkeley. It is ironic that you were unaware of this."
Yeah..., it's "ironic".
It's "ironic" you can't *READ*, given all your 'superior' liberal white racist arrogance.
WELL LET'S GO TO THE REPORT [CAPS ADDED]!:
{ Oakland Tribune
"Flags to fly at half-staff for young victims"
-by Angela Hill
April 25, 2008
The names of 26 CHILDREN and teenagers who died violent deaths in Alameda County in 2007 will be added to a memorial plaque today and a flag will be flown in their honor at the Alameda County Administration building in downtown Oakland.
The somber event is the 12th annual Children's Memorial Flag ceremony held at county offices. It will honor those UNDER AGE 18 -- [NOW THAT WOULD EXCLUDE OSCAR GRANT, AMADOU DIALLO, SEAN BELL, ANITA GAY, GARY KING JR, JERRY AMARO, MARK GACIA, ETC., ETC., ETC., AND THE MAJORITY OF THE NAMES ON THE "STOLEN LIVES PROJECT" MURAL] -- Alameda County and across the United States who have died as a result of violence.
Last year, seven children and teens died in Oakland, five in Hayward, three in Berkeley, three in Pleasanton, two in San Leandro, two in Union City, one in Castro Valley, one each in Emeryville and Alameda. One Concord child who died in Alameda County also will be recognized.
The deaths were from VARIOUS CAUSES -- some from gun violence, others from SUICIDE and even some at the hands of a PARENT.
All city and county buildings in Alameda County have been asked -- [NOT REQUIRED] -- to fly the American flag and the Children's Memorial Flag at half- staff today. }
SO, THE PLAQUE AND MEMORIAL WAS *NOT* FOR INNOCENT VICTIMS AND UNARMED SUSPECTS STREET-EXECUTED BY THE *PIGS*.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "I wonder, what have you accomplished?"
You know, I looked up YOUR NAME on the internet and you know what I found?: *NNNOTHIN'* -- *AT ALLL* -- *ZZZILCHO* -- *NNNADA*!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUT THANKS FOR BEING AN EMBARRASSMENT TO YOUR RACE AND NOW CLEARLY JUSTIFYING MY COMMENT "NAIVE CLUELESS WHYTE BOY"!
WHEN YOU CAN SHOW ME AN EPIDEMIC OF **WHITE** PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING SUMMARILY STREET EXECUTED, IN A NATIONAL 'EPIDEMIC', BY THE POLICE, THEN I'LL BOTHER TO EVEN RESPOND TO YOU AGAIN.
LOOK, I'M *SMARTER* THAN YOU. YOU'LL *NEVER* BE AS SMART AS I AM. DON'T COME BACK OR YOU'LL GET ANOTHER INTELLECTUAL **ASS-WHOOPPIN'**.
"[T]he train is leaving the station", but you mentally MISSED it.
Like I told "reality-LESS" above (Apr 6th, 3:44PM & Apr 7th, 3:07PM)..., I DON'T GIVE A F*CK WHAT YOU THINK.
IN THE MEANTIME..., *GGGET* OUTTA MAHH FFACE...!
-
I already see that you're one of those liberal white racists that always want to avoid the issue of race.
So, I'm going to waste very little time on you -- ONLY WHAT IT TAKES TO SHOW YOU FO' THA *FFOOOLL* THAT YOU *ARE*.
First, let me tell you: GO READ A _BOOK_. Read authoritative ones by someone WHITE -- if that will help you more.
Second, you can start with the book (since you undoubtedly value the words of white people more than from people of color, so maybe this will intellectually move you) from an INTELLIGENT *white* guy: _OUR ENEMIES IN BLUE: POLICE AND POWER IN AMERICA_, by Kristian Williams_.
And when I wrote in my formal commentary that, "police departments as institutions, historically represent the street enforcement arm of white American racism", in fact the police and the KKK and the racist White Citizens' Councils were usually one and the same or greatly overlapped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for your idioticly evasive non sequitur, "In truth, it is far more common to find young black men summarily tried sentenced and executed by other young black men than by the police..."
IN EVERY SO-CALLED "RACE", THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE WITHIN THEIR "RACE" WHO KILL EACH OTHER THAN DO THE POLICE [OR OTHERS OUTSIDE THAT "RACE"] --- SSSO *WWHHATT*...!?
ALL THAT SHOWS IS THAT PEOPLE TEND TO COMMIT CRIMES -- OF ALL SORTS -- AGAINST THOSE NEAR THEM, AROUND THEM, OR AGAINST THOSE THEY HAVE GREATER ACCESS TO.
SO WHAT RACIAL GROUP DOESN'T KILL MORE MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN RACIAL GROUP THAN OUTSIDERS? -- INCLUDING WHITES!
BUT THOSE MURDERERS ARE *NOT* FUNDED BY THE TREASURY OF THE STATE, ARMED-TO-THE-TEETH WITH EVERYTHING THEY COULD WANT, GIVEN EVEN HELICOPTERS AND ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIERS, PROVIDED A COMMAND-&-CONTROL RADIO TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM, GIVEN COMPUTER ACCESS TO OUR RECORDS, HAVE THE POWER TO ARREST, AND CONSTITUTIONALLY EMPOWERED BY THE _**STATE**_
--AND ARE NOT GIVEN *STATE FUNERALS* WITH ALL THEIR KIND FLOWN IN AT STATE EXPENSE, WITH THE MOTORCADE HIGHWAYS CLOSED, IF THEY THEMSELVES ARE KILLED.
HOW MANY ORDINARY CITIZENS, OR GANGS (BESIDES THE *OTHER* GANG IN BLUE, BUT WEARING A BADGE) CAN BE CAUGHT EXECUTING SOMEONE *POINT BLANK* ON EVEN *DOZENS* OF VIDEO CAMERAS, LET ALONE IN A HAILSTORM OF BULLETS, AND GET *ZZZERO*, OR EXTREMELY LIGHT (AND SERVED IN A COUNTRY CLUB PRISON), SENTENCES?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "Frankly, I cannot find one useful, actionable point in your entire essay."
I don't doubt that at all, given your moronic 'intelligence', but I'm glad you were "frank" about your mental limitations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "You ask, where were the flags at half staff for civilian victims of violent death?"
NO I *DIDN'T* ASK THAT (speaking of trying to finagle and sleight strawman concoctions).
Speaking of frank mental limitations, obviously YOU CAN'T READ.
I CLEARLY WROTE: "But no flags were flown at half-staff over City Hall by the Black mayor of Oakland for Oscar Grant or any of the other innocent minority VICTIMS OF *POLICE* SUMMARY EXECUTIONS. ... Where were the flags at half-staff, much less the state and mass media-covered funeral, for Oscar Grant and all the other unarmed, innocent VICTIMS OF KILLER *COPS'* VIGILANTISM AND STREET EXECUTIONS?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "On April 25th , 2008, for one. On that day the names of 26 children and teenagers who died violent deaths in Alameda County in 2007 were added to a memorial plaque and the flag was flown at half staff in their honor at the Alameda County Administration building in downtown Oakland and at all public buildings in Alameda County, including Berkeley. It is ironic that you were unaware of this."
Yeah..., it's "ironic".
It's "ironic" you can't *READ*, given all your 'superior' liberal white racist arrogance.
WELL LET'S GO TO THE REPORT [CAPS ADDED]!:
{ Oakland Tribune
"Flags to fly at half-staff for young victims"
-by Angela Hill
April 25, 2008
The names of 26 CHILDREN and teenagers who died violent deaths in Alameda County in 2007 will be added to a memorial plaque today and a flag will be flown in their honor at the Alameda County Administration building in downtown Oakland.
The somber event is the 12th annual Children's Memorial Flag ceremony held at county offices. It will honor those UNDER AGE 18 -- [NOW THAT WOULD EXCLUDE OSCAR GRANT, AMADOU DIALLO, SEAN BELL, ANITA GAY, GARY KING JR, JERRY AMARO, MARK GACIA, ETC., ETC., ETC., AND THE MAJORITY OF THE NAMES ON THE "STOLEN LIVES PROJECT" MURAL] -- Alameda County and across the United States who have died as a result of violence.
Last year, seven children and teens died in Oakland, five in Hayward, three in Berkeley, three in Pleasanton, two in San Leandro, two in Union City, one in Castro Valley, one each in Emeryville and Alameda. One Concord child who died in Alameda County also will be recognized.
The deaths were from VARIOUS CAUSES -- some from gun violence, others from SUICIDE and even some at the hands of a PARENT.
All city and county buildings in Alameda County have been asked -- [NOT REQUIRED] -- to fly the American flag and the Children's Memorial Flag at half- staff today. }
SO, THE PLAQUE AND MEMORIAL WAS *NOT* FOR INNOCENT VICTIMS AND UNARMED SUSPECTS STREET-EXECUTED BY THE *PIGS*.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Charles Turiaf": "I wonder, what have you accomplished?"
You know, I looked up YOUR NAME on the internet and you know what I found?: *NNNOTHIN'* -- *AT ALLL* -- *ZZZILCHO* -- *NNNADA*!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUT THANKS FOR BEING AN EMBARRASSMENT TO YOUR RACE AND NOW CLEARLY JUSTIFYING MY COMMENT "NAIVE CLUELESS WHYTE BOY"!
WHEN YOU CAN SHOW ME AN EPIDEMIC OF **WHITE** PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING SUMMARILY STREET EXECUTED, IN A NATIONAL 'EPIDEMIC', BY THE POLICE, THEN I'LL BOTHER TO EVEN RESPOND TO YOU AGAIN.
LOOK, I'M *SMARTER* THAN YOU. YOU'LL *NEVER* BE AS SMART AS I AM. DON'T COME BACK OR YOU'LL GET ANOTHER INTELLECTUAL **ASS-WHOOPPIN'**.
"[T]he train is leaving the station", but you mentally MISSED it.
Like I told "reality-LESS" above (Apr 6th, 3:44PM & Apr 7th, 3:07PM)..., I DON'T GIVE A F*CK WHAT YOU THINK.
IN THE MEANTIME..., *GGGET* OUTTA MAHH FFACE...!
-
"The [childrens'] deaths were from VARIOUS CAUSES -- some from gun violence, others from SUICIDE and even some at the hands of a PARENT."
Charles Turiaf: "Frankly, I cannot find one useful, actionable point in your entire essay."
Joseph Anderson: “quick, effective prosecutions, sound convictions and serious criminal sentences against rogue and killer cops.”
Mr. Anderson, I see you are a student of the angry, shout ‘em down, name calling school of progressive activism. How is that working out for you? Is that what the choir wants to hear, or does it serve only your own personal agenda? Seems to me the title Longtime Progressive Activist describes someone who has taken action aimed at moving a constructive agenda forward for some significant length of time. For a longtime progressive activist, you sure sound a lot like a racist fascist. Last year, I gave over 400 hours helping Somali immigrants learn to read. The year before that I gave over 500 hours to a Catholic Charities home for displaced children. What did you accomplish in the last two years, besides posting hate-filled diatribes on the Internet? This is the second time I’ve asked you.
I hear you loud and clear when you say you don’t give a fuck what I think. It’s the only important thing you’ve said. I see now that I’ve stumbled into the wrong place. I was looking for a place to exchange ideas leading to a better understanding of events taking place in the area where I grew up, instead I found a cult of self-perpetuated self-loathing and pity. So, I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Anderson. Nor do you have anything worthwhile to offer. But I do have some parting advice for Mr. Anderson’s constituents.
People like Mr. Anderson will never be part of the solution to any problem. To the contrary, Anderson and people like him will do what they can to prevent us from talking with each other, because talking together is always the first step in any process leading to genuine progressive action and they like things just the way they are. What motivates Anderson and people like him? Fear of abandonment, perhaps. Maybe it’s self-loathing. Or simply hatred. I once heard James Baldwin say that some people cling to hate because once hate is gone, all that is left is pain. Maybe Anderson just likes the sound of his own voice. Who knows? What matters is that you should care about what I think. I grew up on Outlook Avenue near the intersection of Foothill and Macarthur Blvds. If you know Oakland, you understand the significance of that location. I was in People’s Park the day the National Guard marched down Telegraph Avenue and tear gas was fired from helicopters overhead. Obviously, I am not a young person. So ask yourselves, if Mr. Anderson would dismisses me so casually, do you suppose there is room at his table for anyone except Mr. Anderson himself?
Perhaps you believe there is no point in talking with people like me, namely anyone not like you. In Mr. Anderson’s world the disenfranchised do not communicate, except through expressions of rage or contempt. Who suffers then, Me? Suppose we each of us does our utmost to destroy the other? How does that come out? Or (and this is the real point, so please pay attention now) you keep doing whatever it is you do and I, along with all the other people who share more in common with me than you, do absolutely nothing. We lose interest in you. We completely disengage from you.. I know that works for Mr. Anderson, but what about you?
Times are hard. As an actual, gainfully employed economist, I’m telling you it’s getting worse before it gets better. The pie is shrinking at the same time many more people line up for a slice. Urban African-Americans, in particular, are at the end of a long line that is getting even longer, and from the front. New immigrants, legal and illegal both, have inspired considerable support by their success in school and their determination to find work, and grow in significant numbers. Now I’m speaking only to African-Americans when I ask: what about you? I imagine that were the answer “Not You”, then whatever support is available will be directed first to minorities more likely to help themselves, some of who are blacker and more African than you are. That sounds harsh, I know, but it is the truth, nevertheless. Meanwhile, people like Mr. Anderson would like to defend anyone who strike a blow against what he believes began as a slave patrol, the Police.
If you want to win, adopt this ethos: Lovelle Mixon is a sad example of what has become of our society. Thank god men are still willing to die protecting us against predators like him. Sadly, the same institution, which seeks to protect us from Lovelle Mixon, kills people like Oscar Grant. Let god give us EACH the wisdom to distinguish between Lovelle Mixon and Oscar Grant.
So now you are rid of me. Congratulations.
I hear you loud and clear when you say you don’t give a fuck what I think. It’s the only important thing you’ve said. I see now that I’ve stumbled into the wrong place. I was looking for a place to exchange ideas leading to a better understanding of events taking place in the area where I grew up, instead I found a cult of self-perpetuated self-loathing and pity. So, I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Anderson. Nor do you have anything worthwhile to offer. But I do have some parting advice for Mr. Anderson’s constituents.
People like Mr. Anderson will never be part of the solution to any problem. To the contrary, Anderson and people like him will do what they can to prevent us from talking with each other, because talking together is always the first step in any process leading to genuine progressive action and they like things just the way they are. What motivates Anderson and people like him? Fear of abandonment, perhaps. Maybe it’s self-loathing. Or simply hatred. I once heard James Baldwin say that some people cling to hate because once hate is gone, all that is left is pain. Maybe Anderson just likes the sound of his own voice. Who knows? What matters is that you should care about what I think. I grew up on Outlook Avenue near the intersection of Foothill and Macarthur Blvds. If you know Oakland, you understand the significance of that location. I was in People’s Park the day the National Guard marched down Telegraph Avenue and tear gas was fired from helicopters overhead. Obviously, I am not a young person. So ask yourselves, if Mr. Anderson would dismisses me so casually, do you suppose there is room at his table for anyone except Mr. Anderson himself?
Perhaps you believe there is no point in talking with people like me, namely anyone not like you. In Mr. Anderson’s world the disenfranchised do not communicate, except through expressions of rage or contempt. Who suffers then, Me? Suppose we each of us does our utmost to destroy the other? How does that come out? Or (and this is the real point, so please pay attention now) you keep doing whatever it is you do and I, along with all the other people who share more in common with me than you, do absolutely nothing. We lose interest in you. We completely disengage from you.. I know that works for Mr. Anderson, but what about you?
Times are hard. As an actual, gainfully employed economist, I’m telling you it’s getting worse before it gets better. The pie is shrinking at the same time many more people line up for a slice. Urban African-Americans, in particular, are at the end of a long line that is getting even longer, and from the front. New immigrants, legal and illegal both, have inspired considerable support by their success in school and their determination to find work, and grow in significant numbers. Now I’m speaking only to African-Americans when I ask: what about you? I imagine that were the answer “Not You”, then whatever support is available will be directed first to minorities more likely to help themselves, some of who are blacker and more African than you are. That sounds harsh, I know, but it is the truth, nevertheless. Meanwhile, people like Mr. Anderson would like to defend anyone who strike a blow against what he believes began as a slave patrol, the Police.
If you want to win, adopt this ethos: Lovelle Mixon is a sad example of what has become of our society. Thank god men are still willing to die protecting us against predators like him. Sadly, the same institution, which seeks to protect us from Lovelle Mixon, kills people like Oscar Grant. Let god give us EACH the wisdom to distinguish between Lovelle Mixon and Oscar Grant.
So now you are rid of me. Congratulations.
"Charles Turiaf": "Last year, I gave over 400 hours helping Somali immigrants learn to read."
'SURRRRE' YA DID...
TEACHING TO *READ*...!??? ...YOU CAN'T EVEN READ, *YOURSELF*!
YOU COULDN'T EVEN CORRECTLY *READ* THE ARTICLE YOU REFERENCED TO ME!
GO BACK TO SCHOOL WHYTE BOY!!
YO, "REALITY-LESS"!: COME GET YO' BBOY...!! HE AIN'T READY FOR PRIME TIME.
"Charles Turiaf": "The year before that I gave over 500 hours to a Catholic Charities home for displaced children."
THE OTHER PART OF YOUR CRIMINAL SENTENCE TOO, IN ADDITION TO TIME SERVED, HUH???
LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN READ *THIS* AGAIN: "You know, I looked up YOUR NAME -- FOR SOMEONE WHO'S SUPPOSEDLY DONE SO *MUCH* -- on the internet and you know what I found?: *NNNOTHIN'* -- *AT ALLL* -- *ZZZILCHO* -- *NNNADA*!!"
"Charles Turiaf": "So, I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Anderson."
FOR SOMEONE WITH "NOTHING MORE TO SAY", YOU SURE DO **BBBABBBLE** ON A LOT...!!
DID ANYONE EVER TELL YOU THAT YOU LOOK LIKE THE **BBBABBBLING-ONNN IDDDIOT** THAT YOU **ARE** WHEN YOU FOLLOW WHAT WITH *FIIIVE* MORE RELATIVELY/ALTERNATELY **LONG** PARAGRAPHS OF MORE ALMOST INCESSANT **BBBABBBLE**...???
"Charles Turiaf": blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, yip-yap, yip-yap, yip-yap, babble, babble, babble...
WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO *IMPRESS* *ME*?: I AIN'T YO' *DADDY*!! ...OR COULD YOU NEVER IMPRESS *HIM*!?: IS *THAT* THE PROBLEM???
...I'M GLAD YOU DID ALL THAT TYPING -- FO' **NNNOTHIN'!!**
There's part of an old saying: ...WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THE FACTS RIGHT, KEEP POUNDING THE TABLE!! ...That's what you've inanely, lastly, resorted to...
"Charles Turiaf": "Now I’m speaking only to African-Americans when I ask: what about you? ...blah, blah, blah, babble, babble, babble... That sounds harsh, I know, but it is the truth"
...with some supposedly 'superior' WHITE RACIST BIGOTTED TRASH thrown in...
BUT THANKS -- *AGAIN* -- FOR BEING _AN EMBARRASSMENT TO YOUR RACE_ AND NOW CLEARLY JUSTIFYING MY COMMENT "CLUELESS WHYTE BOY"!
"Charles Turiaf": "So now you are rid of me."
YOU **PROMISE**???
*AT LLLAST*!!!: SOME MORE *KARMIC JUSTICE*!!!
-
'SURRRRE' YA DID...
TEACHING TO *READ*...!??? ...YOU CAN'T EVEN READ, *YOURSELF*!
YOU COULDN'T EVEN CORRECTLY *READ* THE ARTICLE YOU REFERENCED TO ME!
GO BACK TO SCHOOL WHYTE BOY!!
YO, "REALITY-LESS"!: COME GET YO' BBOY...!! HE AIN'T READY FOR PRIME TIME.
"Charles Turiaf": "The year before that I gave over 500 hours to a Catholic Charities home for displaced children."
THE OTHER PART OF YOUR CRIMINAL SENTENCE TOO, IN ADDITION TO TIME SERVED, HUH???
LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN READ *THIS* AGAIN: "You know, I looked up YOUR NAME -- FOR SOMEONE WHO'S SUPPOSEDLY DONE SO *MUCH* -- on the internet and you know what I found?: *NNNOTHIN'* -- *AT ALLL* -- *ZZZILCHO* -- *NNNADA*!!"
"Charles Turiaf": "So, I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Anderson."
FOR SOMEONE WITH "NOTHING MORE TO SAY", YOU SURE DO **BBBABBBLE** ON A LOT...!!
DID ANYONE EVER TELL YOU THAT YOU LOOK LIKE THE **BBBABBBLING-ONNN IDDDIOT** THAT YOU **ARE** WHEN YOU FOLLOW WHAT WITH *FIIIVE* MORE RELATIVELY/ALTERNATELY **LONG** PARAGRAPHS OF MORE ALMOST INCESSANT **BBBABBBLE**...???
"Charles Turiaf": blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah, yip-yap, yip-yap, yip-yap, babble, babble, babble...
WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO *IMPRESS* *ME*?: I AIN'T YO' *DADDY*!! ...OR COULD YOU NEVER IMPRESS *HIM*!?: IS *THAT* THE PROBLEM???
...I'M GLAD YOU DID ALL THAT TYPING -- FO' **NNNOTHIN'!!**
There's part of an old saying: ...WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THE FACTS RIGHT, KEEP POUNDING THE TABLE!! ...That's what you've inanely, lastly, resorted to...
"Charles Turiaf": "Now I’m speaking only to African-Americans when I ask: what about you? ...blah, blah, blah, babble, babble, babble... That sounds harsh, I know, but it is the truth"
...with some supposedly 'superior' WHITE RACIST BIGOTTED TRASH thrown in...
BUT THANKS -- *AGAIN* -- FOR BEING _AN EMBARRASSMENT TO YOUR RACE_ AND NOW CLEARLY JUSTIFYING MY COMMENT "CLUELESS WHYTE BOY"!
"Charles Turiaf": "So now you are rid of me."
YOU **PROMISE**???
*AT LLLAST*!!!: SOME MORE *KARMIC JUSTICE*!!!
-
Letters to the Editor
Wednesday April 08, 2009
Editors, Daily Planet:
What an inflammatory, absurd commentary by Joseph Anderson (“The Karmic Justice of Lovelle Mixon’s Act,” April 2). To refer to the deaths of four public servants as “karmic justice” is perverse. Clearly not only is Mr. Anderson willing to engage in hyperbolic generalities, but he has a grievous misunderstanding of the concept of karma as well. He will persuade no one that black citizens of Oakland suffer from racial injustice because no one “sitting on the fence” will be able to look past his palpable hatred for police officers. But then this probably is not his intention. He is merely content to light a match and toss it into the flames of human suffering.
S. Linder
Editors, Daily Planet:
Are there no editorial standards at the Berkeley Daily Planet? Is it really considered acceptable or constructive to glorify Lovelle Mixon, a man who rapes 12-year-olds and shoots police officers while they do their jobs responsibly? Is there no editor who knows enough history to know that the police of this and any other country do not come out of “white slave patrols,” whatever that might be? Does no one see the value in correcting the implication that it was the Oakland Police Department who shot Oscar Grant?
There is a coherent argument to be made regarding the role of the police in some neighborhoods and situations. There are a great many critiques to be made of the Oakland Police Department and its management. Unfortunately, Joseph Anderson’s commentary sets those efforts back through his haphazard pack of outdated stereotypes and generalizations. Would he really say this to the three widows left behind? Does he know those officers were people, too?
By choosing to run the piece, the Daily Planet exercises an editorial choice. I hope it is considered more carefully in the future. It’s just bad journalism to print blatantly incorrect and misleading assertions. It’s shameful to give a soapbox to a man so twisted by his own prejudice that he will forgive for raping minors in order to condone his murders.
Seth Katz
Maureen Logan
Oakland
MEN AND MONSTERS
Editors, Daily Planet:
I have spent a third of my 50 years in State and federal prisons. I was one of the bad guys, as hard as it is for some to believe. My crimes were fraud related. I wasn’t a violent offender, but I spent seven or more years in max and medium security prisons. In my life I’ve known a few Mixons—prisons are chock full of them and should be. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s column suggesting that Mixon was being unfairly judged on tentative DNA tests, and a commentary by Joseph Anderson, stating that the murder of four police officers was justified, payback, an eye for an eye, are glaring examples of people who don’t get it. I’ve walked among the Lovelle Mixons of the world, both in and out of prison. Guess what? They need to be in prison. Society really does need to be protected from these predatory men. I’ve seen these guys in action. In prison they prey on the weak, and they do the same on the streets. Apologists cry out, “It’s societies fault, the justice system’s fault, it’s white America’s fault, poverty did it.” Then there are the folks who can barely conceal their satisfaction, the idea that karma exacted a price for past and present wrongs. They not only excuse the killer, they blame the victim.
Let me be really clear here, Lovelle Mixon decided to kill to avoid accountability, period. A human being who can willfully take a life to avoid accountability, to avoid a possible six- or 12-month parole violation, that type of person is called a sociopath. Now multiply that one life by four and you have a monster. These same clowns who suggest Mixon is some kind of victim, or worse yet, a martyr, would quickly brand him a monster if his violence had directly touched their own lives. It’s easy to have such high sensibility when you are observing from afar. After all the cops weren’t their family, their people. I’m an unemployed ex-convict. Race no longer is an advantage for me. I get just as many doors slammed in my face as a black ex-con. With millions of honest, non-felons unemployed, a guy like me doesn’t stand a chance competing for a position. It’s a given that the honest square guy will get the job, and really it’s only fair, right? You pay a price when you decide to willingly break the laws of society. You make a conscious decision, and that decision comes with a price. That’s how it should be, it’s fair.
As an ex-con you have choices to make. You can man up, walk a straight line, or you can continue to be a criminal. I chose the former, Lovelle Mixon chose the latter. He was a predator, a killer, most likely a rapist, and in the end he is as close to a monster as humanly possible. Just ask the widows, the children, friends, family, and fellow officers of the four cops he killed in an effort to avoid accountability.
Mark Smith
Kansas City, MO
A KARMICALLY JUSTIFIED
MULTIPLE HOMICIDE?
Editors, Daily Planet:
I have a bad feeling about Joseph Anderson’s April 2 commentary. Anderson wants the violence to continue and is in fact excited about death in a very unhealthy way. In a well-ordered society he would be in a straitjacket in a mental hospital. As it is, he is going out of his way to get cops killed. That is insane.
Lovelle Mixon was garbage. He was a rapist and a dangerous addict who would have created much more heartbreak if he hadn’t been mercifully killed by the fifth cop. To write an article like this and attempt to make him heroic is a sick and a disgraceful action directed at the volatile young African community which is desperate for peace. This commentary by Anderson is malicious mischief and will cause more murder and heartache. I think that Mr. Anderson must know this, somewhere deep in his stone cold heart. I am aghast that Becky O’Malley would publish this and I am saddened at her seeming need to stir things up in a town whose citizens want peace. Shame on you, Becky, and shame on you, Joseph. If you want excitement, learn to play a musical instrument.
Mic Jordan
Wednesday April 08, 2009
Editors, Daily Planet:
What an inflammatory, absurd commentary by Joseph Anderson (“The Karmic Justice of Lovelle Mixon’s Act,” April 2). To refer to the deaths of four public servants as “karmic justice” is perverse. Clearly not only is Mr. Anderson willing to engage in hyperbolic generalities, but he has a grievous misunderstanding of the concept of karma as well. He will persuade no one that black citizens of Oakland suffer from racial injustice because no one “sitting on the fence” will be able to look past his palpable hatred for police officers. But then this probably is not his intention. He is merely content to light a match and toss it into the flames of human suffering.
S. Linder
Editors, Daily Planet:
Are there no editorial standards at the Berkeley Daily Planet? Is it really considered acceptable or constructive to glorify Lovelle Mixon, a man who rapes 12-year-olds and shoots police officers while they do their jobs responsibly? Is there no editor who knows enough history to know that the police of this and any other country do not come out of “white slave patrols,” whatever that might be? Does no one see the value in correcting the implication that it was the Oakland Police Department who shot Oscar Grant?
There is a coherent argument to be made regarding the role of the police in some neighborhoods and situations. There are a great many critiques to be made of the Oakland Police Department and its management. Unfortunately, Joseph Anderson’s commentary sets those efforts back through his haphazard pack of outdated stereotypes and generalizations. Would he really say this to the three widows left behind? Does he know those officers were people, too?
By choosing to run the piece, the Daily Planet exercises an editorial choice. I hope it is considered more carefully in the future. It’s just bad journalism to print blatantly incorrect and misleading assertions. It’s shameful to give a soapbox to a man so twisted by his own prejudice that he will forgive for raping minors in order to condone his murders.
Seth Katz
Maureen Logan
Oakland
MEN AND MONSTERS
Editors, Daily Planet:
I have spent a third of my 50 years in State and federal prisons. I was one of the bad guys, as hard as it is for some to believe. My crimes were fraud related. I wasn’t a violent offender, but I spent seven or more years in max and medium security prisons. In my life I’ve known a few Mixons—prisons are chock full of them and should be. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s column suggesting that Mixon was being unfairly judged on tentative DNA tests, and a commentary by Joseph Anderson, stating that the murder of four police officers was justified, payback, an eye for an eye, are glaring examples of people who don’t get it. I’ve walked among the Lovelle Mixons of the world, both in and out of prison. Guess what? They need to be in prison. Society really does need to be protected from these predatory men. I’ve seen these guys in action. In prison they prey on the weak, and they do the same on the streets. Apologists cry out, “It’s societies fault, the justice system’s fault, it’s white America’s fault, poverty did it.” Then there are the folks who can barely conceal their satisfaction, the idea that karma exacted a price for past and present wrongs. They not only excuse the killer, they blame the victim.
Let me be really clear here, Lovelle Mixon decided to kill to avoid accountability, period. A human being who can willfully take a life to avoid accountability, to avoid a possible six- or 12-month parole violation, that type of person is called a sociopath. Now multiply that one life by four and you have a monster. These same clowns who suggest Mixon is some kind of victim, or worse yet, a martyr, would quickly brand him a monster if his violence had directly touched their own lives. It’s easy to have such high sensibility when you are observing from afar. After all the cops weren’t their family, their people. I’m an unemployed ex-convict. Race no longer is an advantage for me. I get just as many doors slammed in my face as a black ex-con. With millions of honest, non-felons unemployed, a guy like me doesn’t stand a chance competing for a position. It’s a given that the honest square guy will get the job, and really it’s only fair, right? You pay a price when you decide to willingly break the laws of society. You make a conscious decision, and that decision comes with a price. That’s how it should be, it’s fair.
As an ex-con you have choices to make. You can man up, walk a straight line, or you can continue to be a criminal. I chose the former, Lovelle Mixon chose the latter. He was a predator, a killer, most likely a rapist, and in the end he is as close to a monster as humanly possible. Just ask the widows, the children, friends, family, and fellow officers of the four cops he killed in an effort to avoid accountability.
Mark Smith
Kansas City, MO
A KARMICALLY JUSTIFIED
MULTIPLE HOMICIDE?
Editors, Daily Planet:
I have a bad feeling about Joseph Anderson’s April 2 commentary. Anderson wants the violence to continue and is in fact excited about death in a very unhealthy way. In a well-ordered society he would be in a straitjacket in a mental hospital. As it is, he is going out of his way to get cops killed. That is insane.
Lovelle Mixon was garbage. He was a rapist and a dangerous addict who would have created much more heartbreak if he hadn’t been mercifully killed by the fifth cop. To write an article like this and attempt to make him heroic is a sick and a disgraceful action directed at the volatile young African community which is desperate for peace. This commentary by Anderson is malicious mischief and will cause more murder and heartache. I think that Mr. Anderson must know this, somewhere deep in his stone cold heart. I am aghast that Becky O’Malley would publish this and I am saddened at her seeming need to stir things up in a town whose citizens want peace. Shame on you, Becky, and shame on you, Joseph. If you want excitement, learn to play a musical instrument.
Mic Jordan
Joseph Anderson’s excellent analytical article and its very thoughtful title reminds me about a story half way around the globe. But first about the title. ‘Karma’ is a Hindi language word which literally means ‘deed’, done consciuosly. It also alludes to the long held belief that one’s deed does not die when one passes away, but has an impact in the generations to follow. A more common religious meaning is that the soul is immortal and leaves the body after death, and carries to the next life the consequence of the ‘karma’ of the present life.
So now to a real life story that his article takes me back to.
In India, the upper caste oppression of the lowest caste, also once called the “Untouchables” is well known. Gandhi took up their cause and named them “Harijans” (God’s people) when he began a reform movement early in his political life. The women of the “untouchables” were at the bottom rung of the entire society and subject to abuse not only by men of their own castes, but were also, whenever they were estranged from their spouses, subjected to sexual violence of the upper caste men.
Phoolan Devi, a rebellious Harijan teenage girl married to a man twice her age was such young woman, who ran away from her abusive husband, only to meet the fate of many such women: she was gang raped by upper caste men of her village. Hurt and humiliated, she ran away and joined an outlaw gang who lived in the ravines of central India’s rocky outcrops and raided wealthy households to eke out a marginal existence. She became the leader of the gang when the male leader, also her lover, was killed by the police in one of the raids. A few years later she returned to her village with her gang, found the upper caste men, some of whom had raped her, others who just were gathered with them at a wedding, but for her no different.
She lined up 16 of them against a wall and executed them with her machine gun. She was captured and tried in court, but it was declared a mistrial on some legal grounds. She was later released when the State chose not to try her again, as in the meantime a socialist leader was elected the governor of the state who, himself a lower caste man, understood the larger issue differently. He understood that although she committed a violent crime in response to violence against her, this was an act of “karmic justice” against a history of violent oppression of the Harijans in general, and harijan women in particular. Her act was that of a revolt against a 1000 years oppression.
The state did not pursue the case again as she had been in jail already many years. She renounced violence, ran and was elected to the Indian parliament. A few years ago, she was gunned down by a young upper caste man who stalked her home.
The movie “Bandit Queen” is the Bollywood version of the real story of Phoolan Devi.
So now to a real life story that his article takes me back to.
In India, the upper caste oppression of the lowest caste, also once called the “Untouchables” is well known. Gandhi took up their cause and named them “Harijans” (God’s people) when he began a reform movement early in his political life. The women of the “untouchables” were at the bottom rung of the entire society and subject to abuse not only by men of their own castes, but were also, whenever they were estranged from their spouses, subjected to sexual violence of the upper caste men.
Phoolan Devi, a rebellious Harijan teenage girl married to a man twice her age was such young woman, who ran away from her abusive husband, only to meet the fate of many such women: she was gang raped by upper caste men of her village. Hurt and humiliated, she ran away and joined an outlaw gang who lived in the ravines of central India’s rocky outcrops and raided wealthy households to eke out a marginal existence. She became the leader of the gang when the male leader, also her lover, was killed by the police in one of the raids. A few years later she returned to her village with her gang, found the upper caste men, some of whom had raped her, others who just were gathered with them at a wedding, but for her no different.
She lined up 16 of them against a wall and executed them with her machine gun. She was captured and tried in court, but it was declared a mistrial on some legal grounds. She was later released when the State chose not to try her again, as in the meantime a socialist leader was elected the governor of the state who, himself a lower caste man, understood the larger issue differently. He understood that although she committed a violent crime in response to violence against her, this was an act of “karmic justice” against a history of violent oppression of the Harijans in general, and harijan women in particular. Her act was that of a revolt against a 1000 years oppression.
The state did not pursue the case again as she had been in jail already many years. She renounced violence, ran and was elected to the Indian parliament. A few years ago, she was gunned down by a young upper caste man who stalked her home.
The movie “Bandit Queen” is the Bollywood version of the real story of Phoolan Devi.
http://blogs.kqed.org/food/2007/11/08/la-folie-reviews/
Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA
November 10, 2007 | 2:11 pm
Leslie Sbrocco opens the show every week by saying that this is a restaurant review show by "ordinary San Franciscans / Bay Area people": she should stick to that format.
I've never been a fan of celebrity San Franciscans appearing on this show because it doesn't then reflect the real-world treatment of "ordinary people". (Like my African American dinner party being almost literally shoo'd off even before we could finish our after dinner tea at Tadich Grill in San Francisco or how long another party of mine was once kept waiting for our table –with advance dinner reservations– at Oliveto in Oakland. Needless to say, we never went back.)
For one, the celebrities and other rich folks usually have tons of money for going out and like to brag about how often they go to Postrio or someplace that's at the very least $50-$75 and over –without drinks. For two, of course, they're often unconsciously snobbish (like Liam Mayclem, supposedly "a man of the people", yet are surprised that reservations aren't normally made at a +/-$10-$12 average entree place, unless you have a large group) and they're used to personally special treatment at very expensive restuarants who already know them well as "special customers" who get service, treatment and food exactly the way the restaurant knows the celebrity likes it. Of course, when everyone (the owner, manager and staff) knows you as a celebrity or someone else rich who has deep pockets, you're going to get the best service, food and treatment all around.
Finally, the celebrities and other rich regulars take it so *personally* when someone else doesn't especially like "their [the celebrity's] restaurant" — and then they use the whole show trying to get back at the other person and often butting heads with them — or back-&-forth with each other if they other person is a local/minor celebrity too and/or financially fairly well-off in his own way.
It's sometimes fun to see that the really expensive restaurants often rely more on the posh, exclusive, *expensive* furnishings, decor & atmosphere, rather than really concentrate those expensive prices on on positively, utterly memorable, "I'll-never-forget-it", "somthing-to-write/call-home about" food, while still having a lovely restaurant. (Like, the good service, the good but-not-great food, and the just awful greasy calimari appetizer my party once had at Scotts *Seafood* Restaurant.) And while I tend to avoid the over-dependency on the poshness of those kinds of restaurants, if *they* can't give you fantastic food at those prices, well then it is ironic and sad. But you know what?: they often don't — just an overly small portion of some chefs kid's Lego idea of a small portion of food piled 'architecturally' high. And as for "bland food", as two of the well-off guests complained about at each other's restaurant choice, of course they get their food fixed just the way the staff knows they like it, and of course it's a place filled with the old/older money people who can regularly afford such places; so the food is often going to be blandly seasoned.
Leslie, let your show stick to the kind of real-world people who have to actually stretch their wallet/purses to do to an expensive "destination restuarant" (and then not even a Farallon, Aqua or French Laundry at about $150-$200-a-head) as a special occasion, not as their regular so-called "neighborhood restaurant" hangout.
Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA
November 12, 2007 | 3:03 am
I just had to add this (as I check my weekend email after arriving home late Sunday night) about Tadich Grill (also okay/good, but not great, food –especially for all the wait and the money, given so many other, and wonderful, San Francisco restaurants (rather than this business expense account and 'tourist trap' kind of restaurant): one of my Asian friends, who likes to go out to upscale restaurants, quiped, when I told her that my African American dinner party was almost literally shoo'd off before we could even finish, hell barely even *start*, our planned-to-be-brief after-dinner tea (but, of course, *after* the check, and a ~20% tip, had already been paid — i.e., *after* Tadich and the waiter got their money), that, "Looks like your African American dinner party got some 'old-fashion *treatment*' in that old-fashioned restaurant." You can see my more expensive review and saga at yelp.com restaurant reviews, or Yahoo/Google search "tadich grill"+joseph. I called the owner of Tadich the next day and left a voicemail, but, of course, this 'tourist trap' restaurant owner couldn't be bothered to return my call.
Some VERY expensive restaurants *CAN* get it all right, for all the priceyness: I do want to say that the SCALLOPS — OHHH, THE *SCALLOPS* — I had at Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley *WERE*, POSITIVELY, TO-DIE-FOR! — TO MATCH THE VIEW FROM THE OUTDOOR BALCOLNY! The EXCELLENT food at Tre Vigne was quite positively memorable and worth every cent too, as was the EXCELLENT food at Domaine Chandon, as well as the EXCELLENT food at Farallon (a VERY EXPENSIVE, almost over-the-top but kind of cool and definitely novel, place with noticeably a lot of fashionable young skinny blondes, often in red or silky designer dresses, at the dinner tables of silver-/white-haired men: the people-watching is great and will much add to the dinner conversation)! But, I'm really a big fan of *moderately* priced restaurants with *character* than can create very memorable food (now *that* combination is more sporting), or just tastey food that you really like, that you can go back to time and time again — in the same year!
Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA
November 10, 2007 | 2:11 pm
Leslie Sbrocco opens the show every week by saying that this is a restaurant review show by "ordinary San Franciscans / Bay Area people": she should stick to that format.
I've never been a fan of celebrity San Franciscans appearing on this show because it doesn't then reflect the real-world treatment of "ordinary people". (Like my African American dinner party being almost literally shoo'd off even before we could finish our after dinner tea at Tadich Grill in San Francisco or how long another party of mine was once kept waiting for our table –with advance dinner reservations– at Oliveto in Oakland. Needless to say, we never went back.)
For one, the celebrities and other rich folks usually have tons of money for going out and like to brag about how often they go to Postrio or someplace that's at the very least $50-$75 and over –without drinks. For two, of course, they're often unconsciously snobbish (like Liam Mayclem, supposedly "a man of the people", yet are surprised that reservations aren't normally made at a +/-$10-$12 average entree place, unless you have a large group) and they're used to personally special treatment at very expensive restuarants who already know them well as "special customers" who get service, treatment and food exactly the way the restaurant knows the celebrity likes it. Of course, when everyone (the owner, manager and staff) knows you as a celebrity or someone else rich who has deep pockets, you're going to get the best service, food and treatment all around.
Finally, the celebrities and other rich regulars take it so *personally* when someone else doesn't especially like "their [the celebrity's] restaurant" — and then they use the whole show trying to get back at the other person and often butting heads with them — or back-&-forth with each other if they other person is a local/minor celebrity too and/or financially fairly well-off in his own way.
It's sometimes fun to see that the really expensive restaurants often rely more on the posh, exclusive, *expensive* furnishings, decor & atmosphere, rather than really concentrate those expensive prices on on positively, utterly memorable, "I'll-never-forget-it", "somthing-to-write/call-home about" food, while still having a lovely restaurant. (Like, the good service, the good but-not-great food, and the just awful greasy calimari appetizer my party once had at Scotts *Seafood* Restaurant.) And while I tend to avoid the over-dependency on the poshness of those kinds of restaurants, if *they* can't give you fantastic food at those prices, well then it is ironic and sad. But you know what?: they often don't — just an overly small portion of some chefs kid's Lego idea of a small portion of food piled 'architecturally' high. And as for "bland food", as two of the well-off guests complained about at each other's restaurant choice, of course they get their food fixed just the way the staff knows they like it, and of course it's a place filled with the old/older money people who can regularly afford such places; so the food is often going to be blandly seasoned.
Leslie, let your show stick to the kind of real-world people who have to actually stretch their wallet/purses to do to an expensive "destination restuarant" (and then not even a Farallon, Aqua or French Laundry at about $150-$200-a-head) as a special occasion, not as their regular so-called "neighborhood restaurant" hangout.
Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA
November 12, 2007 | 3:03 am
I just had to add this (as I check my weekend email after arriving home late Sunday night) about Tadich Grill (also okay/good, but not great, food –especially for all the wait and the money, given so many other, and wonderful, San Francisco restaurants (rather than this business expense account and 'tourist trap' kind of restaurant): one of my Asian friends, who likes to go out to upscale restaurants, quiped, when I told her that my African American dinner party was almost literally shoo'd off before we could even finish, hell barely even *start*, our planned-to-be-brief after-dinner tea (but, of course, *after* the check, and a ~20% tip, had already been paid — i.e., *after* Tadich and the waiter got their money), that, "Looks like your African American dinner party got some 'old-fashion *treatment*' in that old-fashioned restaurant." You can see my more expensive review and saga at yelp.com restaurant reviews, or Yahoo/Google search "tadich grill"+joseph. I called the owner of Tadich the next day and left a voicemail, but, of course, this 'tourist trap' restaurant owner couldn't be bothered to return my call.
Some VERY expensive restaurants *CAN* get it all right, for all the priceyness: I do want to say that the SCALLOPS — OHHH, THE *SCALLOPS* — I had at Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley *WERE*, POSITIVELY, TO-DIE-FOR! — TO MATCH THE VIEW FROM THE OUTDOOR BALCOLNY! The EXCELLENT food at Tre Vigne was quite positively memorable and worth every cent too, as was the EXCELLENT food at Domaine Chandon, as well as the EXCELLENT food at Farallon (a VERY EXPENSIVE, almost over-the-top but kind of cool and definitely novel, place with noticeably a lot of fashionable young skinny blondes, often in red or silky designer dresses, at the dinner tables of silver-/white-haired men: the people-watching is great and will much add to the dinner conversation)! But, I'm really a big fan of *moderately* priced restaurants with *character* than can create very memorable food (now *that* combination is more sporting), or just tastey food that you really like, that you can go back to time and time again — in the same year!
You know, after hundreds of years of being called racial slurs, beaten, lynched, and raped, the normal person would feel angry. Now we have video cameras, and that still doesn't stop these PIGS from calling kids racial slurs and beating them. Right at Bart , on a major party holiday, on the eve of our young new president, these pigs killed a young black, hard working father: hands behind his back. We don't want a police force that has permission to do as they feel. The time has come to change police procedure. The people are demanding it. The time has also come to hold police murders accountable. The people are demanding it and finally, the time has come to release our our black brothers from prison and help them heal their justified rage!! (and if the competion is too much for white men, then let them go to prison and sleep it off)
3 Responses to “Karmic justice”
1.
Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA, on April 8th, 2009 at 5:15 pm Said:
DOES CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA LEE STILL SPEAK FOR *US*?
(OR, ARE ALL LIVES TRULY “EQUAL”?)
______________________________________________
“Does Barbara Lee Still Speak for You and Me?”
By Henry Norr
Wednesday March 25, 2009
Berkeley Daily Planet newspaper
Berkeley, CA
[exceprt]
When four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, Rep. Barbara Lee wasted no time before speaking out. The very next day — on a Sunday, no less — she issued not one but two press releases expressing condolences to the victims’ families and support for their colleagues. The following day she took to the floor of the House and for more than six minutes paid tribute to these “fallen heroes,” as she put it. The press statements promptly appeared on her official website, and a video clip of her remarks to the House was posted to her YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t nearly as quick to respond to some other recent incidents of violence that have concerned many of her constituents:
• Oscar Grant. After the BART police murdered Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station, Lee made no public statement about the incident for more than a week. Only after hundreds of her constituents had taken to the streets to express their outrage — not only at the killing, but also at the establishment’s demonstrable indifference to it — did she issue a statement declaring that her “thoughts and prayers are with the family of Oscar Grant as they grieve the loss of their loved one.”
Even then, she and her staff don’t seem to have made much of an effort to get her statement out. They didn’t even bother to post it on her website — as of March 25, it’s still not there — and the only place Google finds the text is in a Bay Area News Group blog, not even in the Oakland Tribune or other East Bay papers. (On Jan. 14 Lee issued another statement saying she was “pleased” at the arrest of former officer Johannes Mehserle. That one did make it to her website.)
___________
Henry Norr is a former journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle
.
2.
Brown Girl from East Los, on April 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm Said:
Thank you, Joseph, for your clear analysis and for bringing to light the contradictions between how cops’ deaths are treated and how innocent civilians’ deaths are treated.
And thank you for offering finally, a really solution!
“quick, effective prosecutions, sound convictions and serious criminal sentences against rogue and killer cops.”
3.
Raj Sahai, on April 8th, 2009 at 10:10 pm Said:
Joseph Anderson’s excellent analytical article and its very thoughtful title reminds me about a story half way around the globe. But first about the title. ‘Karma’ is a Hindi language word which literally means ‘deed’, done consciuosly. It also alludes to the long held belief that one’s deed does not die when one passes away and it has an impact in the generations to follow.A more common religious meaning is that the soul is immortal and leaves the body after death, and carries to the next life,the consequence of the ‘karma’ of the present life.
So now to a real life story that his article takes me back to. In India, the upper caste oppression of the lowest caste, also once called the “untouchables” is well known.Gandhi took up their cause and named them “Harijans”, (god’s people)when he began a reform movement early in his political life. The women of the “untouchables” were at the bottom rung of the entire society and subject to abuse not only by men of their own castes but were also whenever they were estranged from their spouses, subjected to sexual violence of the upper caste men.Phoolan Devi, a rebellious Harijan teenage girl married to a man twice her age was such young woman, who ran away from her abusive husband, only to meet the fate of many such women: she was gang raped by upper caste men of her village. Hurt and humiliated she ran away and joined an outlaw gang who lived in the ravines of central India’s rocky outcrops, and raided wealthy households to eke out a marginal existence. She became the leader of the gang when the male leader, also her lover was killed by the police in one of the raids. A few years later she returned to her village with her gang, found the upper caste men, some who had raped her, others who just were gathered with them at a wedding, but for her no different. She lined up 16 of them against a wall and executed them with her machine gun. She was captured and tried in court but was declared a mistrial on some legal grounds. She was later released when the State chose not to try her again, as in the meantime a socialist leader was elected the governor of the state, who hoimself a lower caste man understood the larger issue. differently. He understood that although she committed a violent crime in response to violence against her this was an act of “karmic justice” against a history of violent oppression of the harijans in general and harijan women in particular. Her act was that of a revolt against a 1000 years oppression.The state did not pursue the case again as she had been in jail already many years. She renounced violence, ran and was elected to the Indian parliament. A few years ago, she was gunned down by a youn upper caste man who stalked her home.The movie “Bandit Queen” is the bollywood version of the real story of Phoolan Devi.
1.
Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, CA, on April 8th, 2009 at 5:15 pm Said:
DOES CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA LEE STILL SPEAK FOR *US*?
(OR, ARE ALL LIVES TRULY “EQUAL”?)
______________________________________________
“Does Barbara Lee Still Speak for You and Me?”
By Henry Norr
Wednesday March 25, 2009
Berkeley Daily Planet newspaper
Berkeley, CA
[exceprt]
When four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, Rep. Barbara Lee wasted no time before speaking out. The very next day — on a Sunday, no less — she issued not one but two press releases expressing condolences to the victims’ families and support for their colleagues. The following day she took to the floor of the House and for more than six minutes paid tribute to these “fallen heroes,” as she put it. The press statements promptly appeared on her official website, and a video clip of her remarks to the House was posted to her YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t nearly as quick to respond to some other recent incidents of violence that have concerned many of her constituents:
• Oscar Grant. After the BART police murdered Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station, Lee made no public statement about the incident for more than a week. Only after hundreds of her constituents had taken to the streets to express their outrage — not only at the killing, but also at the establishment’s demonstrable indifference to it — did she issue a statement declaring that her “thoughts and prayers are with the family of Oscar Grant as they grieve the loss of their loved one.”
Even then, she and her staff don’t seem to have made much of an effort to get her statement out. They didn’t even bother to post it on her website — as of March 25, it’s still not there — and the only place Google finds the text is in a Bay Area News Group blog, not even in the Oakland Tribune or other East Bay papers. (On Jan. 14 Lee issued another statement saying she was “pleased” at the arrest of former officer Johannes Mehserle. That one did make it to her website.)
___________
Henry Norr is a former journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle
.
2.
Brown Girl from East Los, on April 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm Said:
Thank you, Joseph, for your clear analysis and for bringing to light the contradictions between how cops’ deaths are treated and how innocent civilians’ deaths are treated.
And thank you for offering finally, a really solution!
“quick, effective prosecutions, sound convictions and serious criminal sentences against rogue and killer cops.”
3.
Raj Sahai, on April 8th, 2009 at 10:10 pm Said:
Joseph Anderson’s excellent analytical article and its very thoughtful title reminds me about a story half way around the globe. But first about the title. ‘Karma’ is a Hindi language word which literally means ‘deed’, done consciuosly. It also alludes to the long held belief that one’s deed does not die when one passes away and it has an impact in the generations to follow.A more common religious meaning is that the soul is immortal and leaves the body after death, and carries to the next life,the consequence of the ‘karma’ of the present life.
So now to a real life story that his article takes me back to. In India, the upper caste oppression of the lowest caste, also once called the “untouchables” is well known.Gandhi took up their cause and named them “Harijans”, (god’s people)when he began a reform movement early in his political life. The women of the “untouchables” were at the bottom rung of the entire society and subject to abuse not only by men of their own castes but were also whenever they were estranged from their spouses, subjected to sexual violence of the upper caste men.Phoolan Devi, a rebellious Harijan teenage girl married to a man twice her age was such young woman, who ran away from her abusive husband, only to meet the fate of many such women: she was gang raped by upper caste men of her village. Hurt and humiliated she ran away and joined an outlaw gang who lived in the ravines of central India’s rocky outcrops, and raided wealthy households to eke out a marginal existence. She became the leader of the gang when the male leader, also her lover was killed by the police in one of the raids. A few years later she returned to her village with her gang, found the upper caste men, some who had raped her, others who just were gathered with them at a wedding, but for her no different. She lined up 16 of them against a wall and executed them with her machine gun. She was captured and tried in court but was declared a mistrial on some legal grounds. She was later released when the State chose not to try her again, as in the meantime a socialist leader was elected the governor of the state, who hoimself a lower caste man understood the larger issue. differently. He understood that although she committed a violent crime in response to violence against her this was an act of “karmic justice” against a history of violent oppression of the harijans in general and harijan women in particular. Her act was that of a revolt against a 1000 years oppression.The state did not pursue the case again as she had been in jail already many years. She renounced violence, ran and was elected to the Indian parliament. A few years ago, she was gunned down by a youn upper caste man who stalked her home.The movie “Bandit Queen” is the bollywood version of the real story of Phoolan Devi.
Marty Price brings up an interesting point. If a well off society like the US fails to provide sufficient and healthy employment to all it's citizens, isn't there something drastically wrong with it's approach ( the Chicago school of economic thought ), and shouldn't the people demand alternatives, now?
Marty Price isn't speaking about "...the US fails to provide sufficient and healthy employment to all it's citizens..." blah blah blah SRR/Raj Sahai/Brown Girl from East Los/JA/Joseph Anderson, whoever you are. Marty's point is "Quit Absolving Criminals ". He also refers to your commentary as "garbage".
I'm a white woman. Marty did say this system under Capitalism is unfair, correct? Do you think it's garbage to dream of a fair world and discuss alternatives without calling people's comments garbage. If so I would be willing to continue this and tell you some of my ideas, but you seem very angry so I don't think I'll bother.
Marty Price's blindly pro-police commentary in the Berkeley Daily Planet is a RED HERRING:
Besides Price's commentary being unprofessionally written (especially for a former assistant principle at an _educational_ institution in charge of developing young minds hopefully bound for college, but I wouldn't want him in charge of *my* kids), it is largely a critically unsupported/undocumented, negatively Black- & Brown- stereotyping and, negatively, even entirely city of Oakland-stereotyping, PRO-POLICE suck-up commentary, almost entirely based on a logical fallacy: that the existence of "criminals" in the community somehow renders police abuse, brutality, and atrocities, or otherwise police corruption, beyond intellectual and moral criticism or condemnation. Obviously, Price is not capable of any deeper reflection and analysis.
In fact, the working-class and poor Black and Brown communities can be (and in fact is) often victimized by _both_ civilian criminals AND the police, who also often behave like, or often are, (legalized) criminals themselves. To Price, all (Black, Brown, Asian or sometimes even white, male or female) victims of police abuse and brutality are just "criminals" who get what they deserve. (Like, if you're below 50, Black or Brown, casually dressed, and drive a late-model or new car: you're obviously and unemployed car theif and drug dealer about to commit a home invasion.)
Marty Price's arrogant and name-calling (but then he accuses others of being devisive -- which apparently means anyone who disagrees with Price), barroom level, red herring, verbal attack on Anderson, Allen-Taylor, and Damu, about "criminals" in the Black & Brown communities is _utterly irrelevant_ to the issue of police wrongdoing -- which, after all the victims of police brutality and even police murder, Price doesn't say a single word about, and evidently won't even acknowledge that any police brutality ever even takes place: that speaks for itself.
Were Oscar Grant, or Jeremiah Chass, or Amadou Diallo, or Sean Bell, or any number of other innocent victims of police murder alone (not counting all the other forms of police brutality), criminals? Are Joseph Anderson, Douglass Allen-Taylor, Jean Damu, Walter Mosely, and all the other educated (some very famous) Blacks who've written about police abuse and brutality, criminals? Neither Joseph Anderson's or any other Berkeley Daily Planet commentaries "absolved" any criminals. So, Marty Price's diatribe against them is logically _irrelevant_.
Besides Price's commentary being unprofessionally written (especially for a former assistant principle at an _educational_ institution in charge of developing young minds hopefully bound for college, but I wouldn't want him in charge of *my* kids), it is largely a critically unsupported/undocumented, negatively Black- & Brown- stereotyping and, negatively, even entirely city of Oakland-stereotyping, PRO-POLICE suck-up commentary, almost entirely based on a logical fallacy: that the existence of "criminals" in the community somehow renders police abuse, brutality, and atrocities, or otherwise police corruption, beyond intellectual and moral criticism or condemnation. Obviously, Price is not capable of any deeper reflection and analysis.
In fact, the working-class and poor Black and Brown communities can be (and in fact is) often victimized by _both_ civilian criminals AND the police, who also often behave like, or often are, (legalized) criminals themselves. To Price, all (Black, Brown, Asian or sometimes even white, male or female) victims of police abuse and brutality are just "criminals" who get what they deserve. (Like, if you're below 50, Black or Brown, casually dressed, and drive a late-model or new car: you're obviously and unemployed car theif and drug dealer about to commit a home invasion.)
Marty Price's arrogant and name-calling (but then he accuses others of being devisive -- which apparently means anyone who disagrees with Price), barroom level, red herring, verbal attack on Anderson, Allen-Taylor, and Damu, about "criminals" in the Black & Brown communities is _utterly irrelevant_ to the issue of police wrongdoing -- which, after all the victims of police brutality and even police murder, Price doesn't say a single word about, and evidently won't even acknowledge that any police brutality ever even takes place: that speaks for itself.
Were Oscar Grant, or Jeremiah Chass, or Amadou Diallo, or Sean Bell, or any number of other innocent victims of police murder alone (not counting all the other forms of police brutality), criminals? Are Joseph Anderson, Douglass Allen-Taylor, Jean Damu, Walter Mosely, and all the other educated (some very famous) Blacks who've written about police abuse and brutality, criminals? Neither Joseph Anderson's or any other Berkeley Daily Planet commentaries "absolved" any criminals. So, Marty Price's diatribe against them is logically _irrelevant_.
Marty's reputation is actually very strong. He is a serious voice in the community. In his essay published 4/16 in the Daily Planet [http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-04-16/article/32690?headline=Quit-Absolving-Criminals] Marty says "I have worked with young people in Oakland since 1965. I have run a community center, continue to be an educator and coached as well. I have worked with our delinquent population as the Coordinator of the Court and Community Schools of Alameda County and retired as the Assistant Principal of Oakland Tech, my old high school." Marty dismisses Joseph Anderson's essay as "garbage". Joseph's reputation is unfavorable, to say the least. By now, it should be clear that Joseph offers no relevant work, education or life experiences in support of his opinions.
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