Cops Demand An Apology from 49ers.

Colin Kaepernick -- via Facebook.

Colin Kaepernick — via Facebook.

What a way to start a morning, with yet another cop union red-faced and screaming, insisting that all and sundry get on their knees, you must worship at the altar of cop!

he union representing more than 2,000 police officers in San Francisco complained to the National Football League and the San Francisco 49ers over Colin Kaepernick’s protest against overaggressive policing, KNBR-AM reported.

“Not only does he show an incredible lack of knowledge regarding our profession and ‘officer involved’ shootings, but also shows a naivety and total lack of sensitivity toward police officers,” San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA) president Martin Halloran said in the letter, which was sent to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and team president Jed York.

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I Saved More Black Lives Than Beyoncé! I Did!

Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).

Pop star Beyoncé Knowles at the Mtv Music Awards on Sunday Aug. 28, 2016 (Screen capture).

Giuliani. Again. Someone needs to get this man distracted into doing something else. Please.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani reacted angrily to pop star Beyoncé Knowles’ performance at Sunday night’s Mtv Video Music Awards, declaring that his anticrime policies have “saved more black lives” than any black performer.

Politico reported that the Republican mayor and longtime Donald Trump confidant appeared on Monday’s Fox and Friends to decry Knowles’ message and declare that he’s “saved more black lives” than any of the performers featured in the ceremony.

Knowles’ performance featured the group #MothersOfTheMovement — a group of women of color whose children have been killed by police — and stylized depictions of police violence.

“Her dancers were circling around her and one by one, they fell to the ground, and there were red lights underneath them. And that was supposed to symbolize cops killing black individuals,” said Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Giuliani replied, “because I had five uncles who were police officers, two cousins who were, one who died in the line of duty. I ran the largest and best police department in the world, the New York City Police Department. And I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw on stage by reducing crime and particularly homicide by 75 percent.”

Y’know, rattling off how many cop relatives you have is irrelevant. I have a cop relative myself, and boy, did I ever hear stories. They weren’t good stories, either. Cops are people, with all their inherent flaws and biases. There are a whole lot of cops who are busy murdering Native People, Black People, and Hispanic people, along with assorted brown people, the key being brown. This cannot be denied, nor can it be denied that cops have been sanctioned to murder people of colour, as they sure as hell aren’t being punished for it in any way.

“Of which, of which maybe 4,000 or 5,000 were African-American young people who are alive today because of the policies I put in effect that weren’t in effect for 35 years. So if you’re going to do that, then you should symbolize why the police officers are in the neighborhoods and what are you going to go about it? To me it’s two easy answers: a much better education and good job, and what the heck have you done like in Baltimore, when they all stood in Baltimore,” Giuliani ranted.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I see cops in my neighbourhood, I run away. I don’t want anything to do with them. And please, don’t be pushing the “well, who are going to call if you’re in trouble?” My answer is I don’t know, but my first thought might not be cops.

He went on to attack politicians who stood in solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore last year who were protesting the killing of Freddie Gray by Baltimore cops.

“I was sick when I saw all the politicians sitting, standing in Baltimore after the police situation and saying, nobody’s done anything for this community in 50 years,” he went on. “Well, that is a heck of a thing to say, because they’ve been in charge for 50 years. And they have failed the community. I didn’t fail Harlem. I turned Harlem around. I didn’t fail Bedford-Stuyvesant, I turned it around. Go there now. Go walk in Harlem. Then flash back to 25 years ago and go to Harlem before I was mayor, and one was a place where crime was rampant and no national stores and now there’s a thriving community in Harlem.”

I don’t live in NYC, but I hear things now and then, like about people being forced out of certain areas by hostile gentrification. They aren’t dancing in the streets, singing high hallelujahs to Giuliani.

Fox and Friends’ Brian Kilmeade opined that Knowles is sending the wrong message to the next generation of black youth, saying, “And Beyonce is an extremely popular and powerful performer, and when she does stuff like that, that message to the next generation is pretty indelible.”

“It’s a shame,” Giuliani replied. “It’s a shame.”

No. No, it’s not a shame, it’s the right damn thing. Just as Indians are standing up and saying no, the same with Black people everywhere. We have that right, and we’re more than a bit tired of our white colonial masters. Perhaps Giuliani has saved a whole lot of Black lives. Beyoncé is letting people know about injustice, about bigotry, and that yes, they have a voice, and a right to use it. I think that’s pretty important.

Via Raw Story.

Shut Up and Play Ball.

Tommie Smith, John Carlos at 1968 Olympics (public domain), Colin Kaepernick (Facebook).

Tommie Smith, John Carlos at 1968 Olympics (public domain), Colin Kaepernick (Facebook).

Lorraine Berry has an excellent article up at Raw Story about why white fragility explodes any time an athlete who is a person of colour acts on their principles. There really should not be any problem with any athlete (or other entertainer) using their position to point out very big problems. These people have all worked very hard to attain their present status and position, and yes, they earn a fucktonne of money. That money, however, is not a gift from the oh-so-magnanimous white folks to that slave on the field who happens to momentarily delight the owners. The reaction of white people over Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem is sickening. Shouts of “ni**er!” all over, people aghast that he’s given all that money, and is so damn uppity and ungrateful. For anyone with a conscience, for anyone with empathy and compassion, there’s an obligation to point out injustices, an obligation to do something, and to stand by your principles. It takes courage to do that, and it might be nice if a bunch of white people could figure that out.

Just a snippet from Lorraine Berry’s article, it’s excellent, click over and read!

…Kaepernick issued a statement through the NFL after the San Francisco 49ers first pre-season game, after he had failed to join the pre-game ceremony of standing for the playing of the national anthem. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

In the 1968 Olympics, two American athletes and one Australian athlete took on the entire International Olympic Committee in an effort to protest a variety of issues in which the IOC’s decisions were making it harder for black athletes all over the world to compete fairly and to live in a just world. Their actions were greeted by the American public — and by American journalists — as if they had attempted to burn the Olympic games down to the ground, and they were seen as men who had thought their egos larger than the supposed spirit of the Olympic celebration of international brotherhood (sic). Of course, the Australian athlete, Peter Norman, who took silver, was punished in Australia, which had its own abysmal human rights record toward its Aboriginal population, and the payback for his participation in the protest was that he was never allowed to represent Australia again. …

Previous posts about this: Post-Racist. Right. The Bigot’s Answer to Everything: Fire.

White Lives Matter…

White supremacists protest outside Houston, TX NAACP (Photo: Screen capture).

White supremacists protest outside Houston, TX NAACP (Photo: Screen capture).

White Lives Matter has hit the big time, they’ve been noticed and classified by SPLC as a hate group. At first, I was inclined to be dismissive, just another bunch of disgruntled bigots, but it looks more serious than that.

Activists with the “White Lives Matter” movement will be aligned with other white nationalist groups like the KKK or skinheads, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map.”

The map is released each year to show hotbeds of racist activity across the United States. Heidi Beirich, head of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told VICE News this week that the “movement” is “clearly white supremacists” who should instead be operating under the slogan “only white lives matter.”

According to an SPLC report from earlier this month, the Black Lives Matter movement came out of a response to the shooting of Trayvon Martin and advocates largely for accountability and equal rights by law enforcement.

The White Lives Matter movement, by contrast, goes beyond what mainstream conservatives have advocated as an “all lives matter” position. Instead, their group is lead by 40-year-old Rebecca Barnette of Tennessee. Barnette also serves as the vice president of the women’s division of the racist skinhead group Aryan Strikeforce. They promote a pro-whiteness agenda, claiming that the race is under attack from immigration, integration and other race-mixing.

Barnette’s focus is to create a “new world” for whites, where they can be safe from the dangers of persecution from non-whites and non-Christians. The SPLC cites a post from Barnette on a Russian social networking site used by many white supremacists and neo-Nazis in which she claims Jews and Muslims have formed an alliance “to commit genocide of epic proportions” of the white race. Now is the time, she adds in the same post, for “the blood of our enemies [to] soak our soil to form new mortar to rebuild our landmasses.”

These groups are out in full force, recruiting and advocating for their support of whiteness. Just last week, armed white supremacists stood outside of an NAACP headquarters in protest, waving Confederate flags and “White Lives Matter” banners along with signs with slogans frequently used in the white supremacist movement.

Full story here.

The Bigot’s Answer to Everything: Fire.

A bunch of bigots have decided that it’s necessary to set fire to their Kaepernick Jerseys in a dandy show of hatred, over Colin’s unfathomable concern for People of Colour. This is just one, there’s more at Buzzfeed.

Stephen King Responds.

stephen-king-800x430

Yesterday, I posted about the extraordinarily racist governor of Maine: “You Shoot the Enemy.” Guess Who the Enemy Is? – and Stephen King, a very famous Maine resident, has responded.

“Our governor, Paul LePage, is a bigot, a homophobe, and a racist. I think that about covers it,” King tweeted.

LePage made news this week for claiming that most drug dealers are black or Hispanic, and then calling a lawmaker who criticized his comments a “son-of-a-bitch socialist c*cksucker.” The incident provoked Maine’s largest newspaper to apologizing on behalf of the state for electing LePage.

It looks like LePage has pretty much the whole state cringing in embarrassment.

This is not the first time that King, who lives in Maine, has criticized his state’s Tea Party governor.

“One must admit LePage has elevated assholery to a level far past the extraordinary and into a rarified sphere that might be termed divine,” King said in January after LePage complained that urban drug dealers named “D-Money” were coming to Maine and impregnating “young, white girls.”

Then, in March, he said LePage was “full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green” for claiming he had moved out of the state to avoid taxes. “Tabby and I pay every cent of our Maine state income taxes, and are glad to do it,” King continued. “We feel, as Governor LePage apparently does not, that much is owed from those to whom much has been given. We see our taxes as a way of paying back the state that has given us so much. State taxes pay for state services. There’s just no way around it. Governor LePage needs to remember there ain’t no free lunch.”

It’s a genuine pity LePage will not be out of office until 2019. I think perhaps people of Maine should look to possible ways to boot LePage now.

Via Raw Story.

The Civil War Was About Free Speech.

Sid Miller. CREDIT: AP Photo/Eric Gay.

Sid Miller. CREDIT: AP Photo/Eric Gay.

For bigots, the Civil War was never, ever about slavery, oh my no. It was about everything and anything under the sun, but not slavery. Sid “Jesus Juice” Miller is pushing the “it was about freedom of speech!” button.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is planning to the restrict the display of Confederate flags by “amend[ing] our policy to make clear that Confederate flags will not be displayed from any permanently fixed flagpole in a national cemetery at any time.”

As expressed in a letter written by Roger Walters, interim undersecretary for memorial affairs, “We are aware of the concerns of those who wish to see Confederate flags removed from public venues because they are perceived by many as a symbol of racial intolerance.”

But a recent vote indicated a majority of House Republicans oppose the VA’s attempt to restrict where and when the Stars and Bars can be displayed. So does Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner who was recently tapped to be Donald Trump’s national co-chairman of his agriculture advisory team.

In a Facebook post published Thursday, Miller suggests the Civil War was first and foremost about protecting free speech — not slavery. He also strikes a skeptical note about whether Confederates who fought against the United States behaved treasonously.

Responding to a Washington Post column supportive of the VA’s move, Miller writes that the piece “makes my blood boil” and says the Post isn’t “entitled to… attempt to read the minds of my long-dead Confederate ancestors and determine that their actions and motivations during that awful war were treasonous.”
He also denounces “politically correct bureaucrats” pushing for the Stars and Bars to be banned.

“With all that is going on around our world and the serious threats that exist to our country and our constitiional [sic] freedoms by those who carry black flags with Arabic writing upon them, I would think that those in our national government would simply leave alone the flags marking the burial grounds of our Confederate dead,” Miller writes. “Unfortunately, I fear that is just wishful thinking on my part and highlights why the outcome of the upcoming election is so very, very important.”

https://www.facebook.com/MillerForTexas/posts/1884355138453315

Full story at Think Progress.

“You Shoot the Enemy.” Guess Who the Enemy Is?

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

CREDIT: AP/MICHAEL DYWER.

Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) has been mouthing off, a lot. He has frothed about every group he doesn’t like, and it seems if you aren’t a hetero christian white man, you’re in one of the hated groups. Mr. LePage has a particular hatred of anyone who is not verifiably pasty white, and he doesn’t seem to care who knows it, either. He is an ardent Trump fan, which I’m sure is no surprise. In his latest screed, Mr. LePage identifies the enemy: People of Colour, and what you do to the enemy: you shoot them.

In a Friday press conference following his homophobic remarks about a state lawmaker, Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) called people of color and people of Hispanic origin “the enemy” and implied they should be shot.

“A bad guy is a bad guy. I don’t care what color he is. When you go to war, if you know the enemy, the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, you shoot at red,” he said. “You shoot the enemy. You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in are people of color or people of Hispanic origin.”

The governor has offered a veritable potpourri of racist and homophobic remarks over the years. In his voicemail to state Rep. Drew Gattine (D) on Thursday, in an apparent attempt to convince people that he is not a racist, he said, “I want to talk to you. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist cocksucker.”

Oh, yes, helping black people, but you just can’t stand having them in your pristine state of Maine. I’d be willing to bet your idea of help is not the same as mine.

On Wednesday, he called Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen Muslim soldier, a “con artist.” During a town hall on that same day, he said nearly all of Maine’s drug dealers are black or Hispanic. “I don’t ask them to come to Maine (to) sell their poison, but they come,” he said. “And I will tell you, that 90 percent-plus of those pictures in my book — and it’s a three-ring binder — are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn.”

LePage grabbed national headlines earlier this year when he said men named “Smoothie, D-Money, and Shifty” were dealing drugs in Maine. He added, “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue that we’ve got to deal with down the road. We’re going to make them very severe penalties.”

Among his other comments, he told the NAACP to “kiss my butt,” accused asylum seekers of bringing the “ziki fly,” and told the president to “go to hell.” LePage is an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump.

It’s not just the presidential vote that’s important. It’s equally important to usher these asses who run on bigotry and stereotypes out of office, too.

Via Think Progress.

Post-Racist. Right.

Colin Kaepernick -- via Facebook.

Colin Kaepernick — via Facebook.

I keep running into people who insist that Amerikka is post-sexist and post-racist. I have no idea how they keep this delusional illusion in their heads, because every day, we are drowning in evidence that’s not so. Rapists continue to receive slaps on the wrist, and racists continue to shout their bigotry to the skies. The latest example is the reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem.

In a post-game interview on the NFL Network, Kaepernick explained that he was taking a different kind of stand, referencing Black Lives Matter in a roundabout way.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told reporters. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Criticism on Twitter ran from attacks on Kaepernick by questioning his patriotism in light of the millions he earns as an NFL star, to extensive use of the “N-word” from racists who are a source of many of the problems African Americans face in the U.S,.

Some of the tweets are below the fold, because they are explicit and vile.

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Burkini Ban Overturned.

The French beach ban on Islamic garb has caused controversy over women's rights and secularism and confusion over what constitutes a burkini (AFP Photo/Raymond Roig).

The French beach ban on Islamic garb has caused controversy over women’s rights and secularism and confusion over what constitutes a burkini (AFP Photo/Raymond Roig).

This whole snarl of nonsense has been one massive facepalm from the beginning. There was absolutely zero reasons for choosing a single type of beach wear and banning it. Hello, racism! And no, none of the supposed “reasons” made a damn bit of sense. Buzzfeed had a very good response to this idiocy. Some people at any beach anywhere will be covered up in one way or another, and it’s never been any sort of big deal. Oh, but Muslim women? No, no, nope. Can’t have that, expose your body for no good reason, or no beach for you!

France’s highest court has suspended a ban on the “burkini” in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, in a decision likely to lead to the overturn of 30 more such bans in towns across France.

The French League of Human Rights this week asked that the Council of State, a top French court, overturn the ban. The Council of State’s judgment, released Friday afternoon, quashed the earlier ruling of a Nice court that on August 22 said the ban was legal.

The Council of State judgment said that the ban had breached “fundamental freedoms.”

Human rights league lawyer Patrice Spinosi told reporters that the decision should set a precedent, and that other mayors should conform to it, the Associated Press reported.

Amnesty International welcomed the decision, saying in a statement: “By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fueled by and is fueling prejudice and intolerance, today’s decision has drawn an important line in the sand.”

The bans, put in place throughout August by local authorities citing security concerns and issues of cultural cohesion, have been locally decided and enforced, but were backed by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who said the burkini was not welcome in France.

I’m having trouble believing this actually had to go to court. Hey, France, when you do this sort of isht, you’re becoming a lot more like Amerikka. Don’t do that.

Full story here.

Facebook, Oh Facebook VI.

Current Midland City, AL Mayor Patsy Skipper's swearing-in photo from February (Twitter.com).

Current Midland City, AL Mayor Patsy Skipper’s swearing-in photo from February (Twitter.com).

Yet another person who doesn’t seem to understand that posting on FB or other social media is akin to shouting from the rooftops. “I lost. The nigger won”. I am so glad you lost, Ms. Skipper, it’s the very least that could happen to you.

The Republican mayor of Midland City, Alabama got nasty on Facebook after losing her seat to a black candidate in this week’s mayoral election.

“I lost. The ni**er won,” griped Mayor Patsy Capshaw Skipper when someone asked her how the election turned out.

WTVY said that Skipper was defeated by Jo Ann Bennett Grimsley, former assistant city clerk and an employee of the Dale County government for 27 years. She has previously served as the city’s water clerk and county court clerk.

Mayor Skipper was named interim mayor last February when her husband — former Mayor Virgil Skipper — retired for health reasons. County officials voted 3 to 1 for Patsy Skipper to take over her husband’s position.

Voters, however, preferred to see Grimsley at the city helm, casting 233 votes for Grimsley as opposed to Skipper’s 148.

Congratulations to Ms. Grimsley! I’m sure she will do a great job, although doing better than Ms. Skipper is a low bar.

Via Raw Story, where you can see a screen capture of the post.

In Trump We Trust.

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“In Trump We Trust.” Yes, that’s really the title of Ann Coulter’s latest book, a paean to what she calls the great orange hope.  Christ. Well, if that wasn’t enough to get the facepalm going, this certainly is:

She also attempts to answer for his past mistakes, including when he mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a musculoskeletal disorder.

Coulter, in a chapter entitled “Disabled Reporter Joins Media Effort to Create More Disabled Americans,” writes that Trump wasn’t making fun of Kovaleski’s disorder; he was just doing an impression of a “standard retard”:

Trump denied knowing that Serge was disabled, and demanded an apology, saying that anyone could see his imitation was of a flustered, frightened reporter, not a disabled person. It’s true that Trump was not mimicking any mannerisms that Serge has. He doesn’t jerk around or flail his arms. He’s not retarded. He sits calmly, but if you look at his wrists, you’ll see they are curved in. That’s not the imitation Trump was doing—he was doing a standard retard, waving his arms and sounding stupid: “’Ahhh, I don’t know what I said—ahhh, I don’t remember!’ He’s going, ‘Ahhh, I don’t remember, maybe that’s what I said!’”

Right. Well, that clarification makes it…much, much worse. There’s an old saying that’s apt here: with friends like these, you don’t need enemies.

Via Jezebel.

Darnell Wicker.

Darnell Wicker (Photo: Family of Darnell Wicker).

Darnell Wicker (Photo: Family of Darnell Wicker).

Darnell Wicker was pronounced dead around 2 a.m. from multiple shots to his torso, upper right extremity and lower extremities after police officers opened fire on him. The Jefferson County Coroner’s office in Louisville, KY admitted that they don’t know exactly how many times the 57-year-old man was shot.

Police officers Taylor Banks and Beau Gadegaard were responding to a domestic violence call when Wicker came outside holding a knife and a tree saw, according to WDRB.

“He came outside — he came out the door and was holding a knife in his hand, he started kind of swinging it around a little bit and he kind of came at us and so we shot,” an officer explains on the video.

Two women who witnessed the event tell a different story, however. Anita Jones, Wicker’s girlfriend and Denita Jones blame the police.

“They just ran up past him — around him — and just said, ‘Drop your weapon!’ Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!” Anita Jones described police not waiting for Wicker to drop the items. “He had no chance to drop the weapon.”

“The officers jumped out, came around, pushed her out of the way,” said Denita Jones. “I was far enough over here that he ran beside me, pushed her out of the way, said, ‘Ma’am move!’ ran up, the other one went that way. ‘Put it down!’ Pop! Pop! Pop!”

The officers also didn’t perform any kind of first aid on Wicker and the EMTs arrived nine minutes after he was shot.

“I was the person who actually had called them, and I didn’t want that to actually happen,” Denita Jones said. “That was my thing. I just wanted the situation to be okay.”

Once again, you have cops shooting someone, and once again, you have cops who refuse to render aid, even the simple act of calling for an ambulance. This has happened time and time again. Michael Brown. Paul O’Neal. And so many more. Pretty much all the people shot by cops. This is a demonstration of ingrained callousness, the dehumanization of bigotry. Body cam footage is below the fold, and it is graphic, so all the warnings.

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