Tuesday, December 16, 2014

National Demonstrations Against the Racist Hegemony Of Police Brutality and Murder of African American Citizens in the United States Today

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/13/millions-march-nyc_n_6320348.html

 
Tens Of Thousands March On NYPD Headquarters To Protest Police Killings 
by Matt Sledge and Braden Goyette



Tens of thousands of protesters streamed out of New York City's Washington Square Park on Saturday to protest the killings of unarmed black people by police officers, as part of the "Millions March NYC."

The crowd began to wind its way through Manhattan. A large labor union contingent was present, including members of the Communications Workers of America wearing red shirts and AFL-CIO supporters waving blue signs.

In contrast to other marches over the past weeks, this large, orderly demonstration took place during the day. A number of families with children took part, and demonstrators followed a pre-planned route. The march made its way uptown to Herald Square, then looped back downtown, with thunderous chants of "Hands up! Don't shoot!" and "Justice! Now!" echoing down Broadway. The demonstration culminated at One Police Plaza, the New York City Police Department's Lower Manhattan headquarters.

Organizers estimated that 30,000 demonstrators participated in the march. The NYPD told The Huffington Post that, as of the official end of the march, no arrests had been made.

Protesters held up 8 panels depicting Eric Garner's eyes, created by an artist known as JR. "The eyes were chosen as the most important part of the face," said Tony Herbas of Bushwick, an assistant to the artist.

garner eyes

Ron Davis, whose son Jordan was shot dead by a man in Florida after an argument over loud music, was at the head of the march. 

"We have to make everybody accountable," Davis told HuffPost. "You can’t continue to see videos of chokeholds, videos of kids getting shot in the back, and say it’s all right. We have to make sure we have an independent investigator investigate these crimes that police carry out."

Michael Dunn, the man who killed Jordan, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in October. Davis said Saturday that Dunn's conviction proves it's possible that justice can be served in racially charged cases. 

"We ended up getting a historic movement in Jacksonville," Davis said. "We had an almost all-white jury, with seven white men, convict a white man for shooting down an unarmed boy of color."

black lives matter

Also at the front of the march were New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and New York state Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron.

Matthew Brown, a 19-year-old who is African-American and Hispanic, marched down Broadway with his mother, aunt and other family members.

"I'm trying to support a movement that really needs young people like myself," said Brown. "I'm here to speak for Mike Brown."

The teenager said part of his motivation for making the trek from West Orange, New Jersey, with his family was his own personal experience. He's encountered racist verbal abuse from police in Jersey City, he said, who have called him "spic" and monkey."

Citing the cases of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, Brown said part of the reason he wanted to speak out was because of the way police represent encounters with African-Americans. "I just see so many lies after lies."
He also attended the People's Climate March in September. But this march felt more intense to him. "This is one that's really affecting people on a deep, emotional level," Brown said.

Krystal Martinez, a 23-year-old schoolteacher, said she attended the march to send a simple message: "I don't want my students' names chanted at any of these events."

krystal martinez
Because she teaches at a charter school that serves students from Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, Martinez said, she was painfully aware of the challenges black youth face in interactions with police.

Martinez, a Harlem resident, pointed to a sign held by a colleague with a quote from a 13-year-old girl who had been stopped by police: "The first time I was stopped and frisked I was so scared I didn't leave my house for a week."
"Eighty-five percent of my students are black and this is their lives," Martinez said, emphasizing that she spoke for herself and not her school. "I'm out here because of my kids."

Some protesters arrived with concrete policy proposals. Marcia Dupree, a homecare supervisor, came bearing a sign that read, "We must change the law ... no grand jury!!!"
"The root of the problem," Dupree said, was the closeness between grand juries and police. In the wake of two grand juries' decisions not to indict officers in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths, the idea of abolishing the institution has gotten a lot of attention from both the media and policymakers, including the chairman of Missouri's Legislative Black Caucus.

Dupree added that she'd never really considered herself much of an activist before. Serving on the board of her local library in Mount Vernon, New York, was "as political as I got." But she said she has been moved to protest out of concern for her 13-year-old daughter -- who was marching in crutches by her side -- and her 21-year-old son.
"I feel like I need to stand up," said Dupree. "It could be my son."

marcia dupree
At times, the march blurred surreally with Santacon -- the sloshy daytime celebration of Christmas (and drinking) that New Yorkers hate on every year.

A number of Santacon participants joined the march. Others were less enthusiastic. "I love cops, seriously," one man in a Santa cap told an impassive officer. "I hate these people." Then he walked off with his fellow revelers.

santa
Saturday's day of action came in response to two separate grand jury decisions not to indict police officers for killing unarmed black men. On Nov. 24, a St. Louis County grand jury voted not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Less than two weeks later, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Eric Garner by putting him in a chokehold.

Brown's death on Aug. 9 triggered months of protests in Ferguson against police killings -- protests that have since spread nationwide. 

One group of marchers turned into a street protest choir, singing, "We're not gonna stop, until people are free."
Beneva Davies, a 23-year-old Harlem resident who lent her voice to the group, said the most singing she usually does is in the shower.

"It's not really about your voice," Davies said. "It's about your voice, right?"

Davies's family hails from Sierra Leone and Ghana, and she grew up in Massachusetts. Sometimes, she says, she sees a "disconnect" between recent African immigrants and the African-American descendants of slaves.

But she tries to push back against that disconnect, she said, because "at end of the day it's what you're seen as."

Davies saw the march as her chance to answer the question of what she would have done if she had been alive during the civil rights protests led by Martin Luther King Jr.

After hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow and more, Davies said, "People continue to get killed. ... It's frustrating. We have to be here so people can see it."
Sebastian Murdock contributed reporting.

This story has been updated.
  •  
    John Minchillo/AP
    Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
  • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
    Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
  •  
    John Minchillo/AP
    Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
  • wilfish99/Instagram
    Thousands march in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
  • John Minchillo/AP
    Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
  • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
    Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
  • raphaelangenscheidt/Instagram
    Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
  • msjoannaj / Instagram
    Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.

    •  Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • christesc/Instagram
      Thousands march in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • John Minchillo/AP
      Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
    • Carly Schwartz/Huffington Post
      Thousands march on Broadway in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • brentaxthelm/Instagram
      Protesters make their way up fifth avenue in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • andysimpzon/Instagram
      Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • jesslynyovita / Instagram
      Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Jnobianch / Twitter
      Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-black-men-suits-protest-eric-garner-20141215-story.html

Black men in business suits protest alleged police misconduct
By Samantha Masunaga
December 15, 2014
Los Angeles Times


"...Maddox said the vigil, called "Suits in Solidarity," grew out of a desire to show solidarity with young people who protested across the country, but in a different way. Since grand juries declined to indict white officers for incidents in which unarmed black men – Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – protests have broken out across the country. In some cases, protests have grown violent, and almost all have been loud, with marchers in some cases blocking streets and, in L.A., freeways. On Monday, protesters chained themselves to the Oakland Police Department headquarters."

The vigil drew men from all walks of life, including pastors, engineers, business owners and lawyers. As speakers talked about their experiences with the police, the men held signs saying, "Black lives matter."

"In our society, African American men are demonized -- we are seen as a threat," said Virgil Roberts, a lawyer. "It's time for you in America to see us as Americans and contributors to society."

The men started the 30-minute vigil with a moment of silence and ended with a moment of silence after Ridley-Thomas' speech. Then the men put their signs down, and stood silently for 30 seconds with their hands up.

 
About 50 African American men, all dressed in dark suits, gathered in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Monday for a silent vigil to show support for Eric Garner and other alleged victims of police misconduct.

The noontime demonstration, which was anchored by a speech by L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, was intended to show that police target not only youth in low-income neighborhoods, said Kerman Maddox, managing partner at Dakota Communications and the organizer of the vigil.


"The larger community doesn't know how common it is for African American men to be stopped and harassed," he said during the event.

Related:
45 people arrested in Bay Area protests against police killings

Maddox said the vigil, called "Suits in Solidarity," grew out of a desire to show solidarity with young people who protested across the country, but in a different way. Since grand juries declined to indict white officers for incidents in which unarmed black men – Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – protests have broken out across the country. In some cases, protests have grown violent, and almost all have been loud, with marchers in some cases blocking streets and, in L.A., freeways. On Monday, protesters chained themselves to the Oakland Police Department headquarters.

Monday’s event on Spring Street in downtown L.A. was a relatively quiet, calm affair. Many of the men greeted each other with hugs and handshakes.

The vigil drew men from all walks of life, including pastors, engineers, business owners and lawyers. As speakers talked about their experiences with the police, the men held signs saying, "Black lives matter."

"In our society, African American men are demonized -- we are seen as a threat," said Virgil Roberts, a lawyer. "It's time for you in America to see us as Americans and contributors to society."

The men started the 30-minute vigil with a moment of silence and ended with a moment of silence after Ridley-Thomas' speech. Then the men put their signs down, and stood silently for 30 seconds with their hands up.

For more news, follow @smasunaga.

Further Evidence of The Ominous, Pathological, and Deadly Power of the Doctrine & Practice of White Supremacy in the United Hates Today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/sunday-review/dana-canedy-the-talk-after-ferguson-a-shaded-conversation-about-race.html


Sunday Review | Dispatch

The Talk: After Ferguson, a Shaded Conversation About Race

By DANA CANEDY
DEC. 13, 2014
New York Times

 
LIKE so many African-American parents, I had rehearsed “the talk,” that nausea-inducing discussion I needed to have with my son about how to conduct himself in the presence of the police. I was prepared for his questions, except for one.

“Can I just pretend I’m white?”

Jordan was born to African-American parents, but recessive genes being what they are, he has very fair skin and pale blue eyes. I am caramel brown, and since his birth eight years ago people have mistaken me for his nanny.

When I asked why he would want to “pass” for white, I struggled with how to respond to his answer.

“Because it’s safer,” Jordan replied. “They won’t hurt me.”

That recent gray day, not long after grand juries failed to indict the police officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, I had steadied myself to lay out the rules: Always address police officers as “sir” or “ma’am.” Do not make any sudden moves, even to reach for identification. Do not raise your voice, resist or run.

But now I was taken aback.

Jordan’s father and I never had a chance to discuss when we would give him the talk, or what we would say. Our baby was just 6 months old when his dad, a decorated Army soldier, was killed in combat in Iraq. So the timing and the context of the talk were left to me.

I had tried hard to delay it, and make sure he wouldn’t know the names Michael Brown or Eric Garner or Tamir Rice.

In the days leading up to the conversation, I asked an African-American male colleague if he thought it was too soon. When did he tell his own boys?

“Before they were no longer seen as cute,” he said, making me wince.

I hadn’t fully processed that someday my son would be seen as suspect instead of sweet. So I told him, and then Jordan asked if it was rare for the police to hurt black people. I said that, just like his father when he wore his military uniform, most police officers are dedicated to protecting us. But, no, I added, it is unfortunately not uncommon.

“Then I don’t want to be black anymore,” Jordan declared.

He asked if I was crying. I dabbed at my eyes and searched my mind for what to say.

“Son, your father was an incredible African-American man,” I told him. “And you are an amazing boy who is going to grow into just such a man. Please be proud of that.”

“Yes,” he responded emphatically, “but can’t I just pretend to be white?”


The message that Jordan’s appearance affords him the option to check “other” on the race card comes at him constantly. After his second-grade class created self-portraits last year, I noticed that his was the only one not hanging on the classroom wall. His teacher explained that his portrait was “a work in progress.” The brown crayon he had used to color in his face was several shades too dark, she thought, and so she wanted him to “lighten it up” to more accurately reflect his complexion.

The author with her son and his father. Credit Courtesy of Dana Canedy

It is not just the overt signals that have convinced Jordan that he can choose to blend in to a white world. It is also that we live a life of relative affluence. I am a journalist and author whose inner circle includes prominent black writers, television anchors and doctors. We live in a high-rise in Manhattan with a doorman and round-the-clock security. Jordan attends an elite private school and an exclusive summer camp.

A white friend calls him “the boy who lives in the sky” because of the vast city view from the nine-foot windows in his bedroom. “He lives in a bubble and is always with responsible adults,” she said recently, trying to assure me that our status makes him safer than many black boys.

That is true, mostly. And if my parenting pays off, I will be able to minimize his contact with the police. He will be law-abiding. He will respect authority. He’ll understand the perception of black boys wearing hoodies or sagging pants. But will it be enough?

Just last month a video went viral that showed a black man in Pontiac, Mich., being questioned by a sheriff’s deputy because someone reported feeling nervous after seeing him walking in the cold with his hands in his pockets. So as much as I want to believe that our upper-middle-class status will protect my son from many of society’s social ills, it could not provide him the white privilege he seeks.

Nor would “passing” protect Jordan entirely, for the internal damage from living that lie would surely be as painful as any blow from a police baton. To deny his blackness would be to deny me. It would be to deny our enslaved ancestors who were strong enough to endure that voyage. It would mean rejecting the reflection he sees every time he looks in a mirror.

For at least a little while longer, Jordan is too young to understand any of this. He does not know the racial indignity of having jobs and promotions denied or delayed, does not know the humiliation of being stopped and frisked. He has never heard the mantra “I can’t breathe.”

I know that our talk was just the start of a conversation that will go deeper as he moves into his teen years in a post-Obama America. My fervent hope is that, by then, I will have found a way to help him embrace the privilege of being black.

Dana Canedy is a senior editor at The New York Times and the author of the memoir “A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor.”

Grieving Mothers: My Son Would Still Be Alive If He Were White
www.huffingtonpost.com


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/12/mother-deceased-unarmed-black-men_n_6318494.html

 
The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice appeared together for the first time on CNN.

In an interview with Anderson Cooper on Friday, the mothers of the four deceased, unarmed African American males explained that if their sons were white, they would still be alive.

"I think absolutely my son's race and the color of his skin had a lot to do with why he was shot and killed," said Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother.

Eric Garner's mother, Gwen Carr said:

"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing -- even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day -- they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day... I believe that 100 percent."

The mothers also told Cooper that white people don't quite understand what communities of color are going through, partly because they don't have to.

Fulton:

"It's not happening to them, so they don't quite get it... They don't quite understand. They think that it's a small group of African-Americans that's complaining... The people say that all the time: 'What are they complaining about now? What are they protesting about now?

Until it happens to them and in their family then they'll understand the walk. They don't understand what we're going through. They don't understand the life and they don't understand what we're fighting against. I don't even think the government quite gets it."

Martin died in 2012 in Florida when neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman shot him. Martin was seventeen years old. Zimmerman was acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter.

Brown died in Ferguson, Mo. in an altercation with police officer Darren Wilson in August. A grand jury voted not to indict Wilson in November.

In July, Garner died after NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold, a death the medical examiner concluded was a homicide. The incident was recorded on video. A grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo, which sparked a new wave of protests inspired by Garner's last words, "I can't breathe."

12-year-old Tamir Rice was at a Cleveland park when a police car pulled up and shot him last month. His death was ruled a homicide according to a Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's autopsy report.

Grieving Mothers: My Son Would Still Be Alive If He Were White:  www.huffingtonpost.com

Author of ‘Broken Windows’ Policing Defends His Theory
www.nytimes.com


"Broken Windows Policing' Denounced--Various publications

Author of ‘Broken Windows’ Policing Defends His Theory--New York Times

Controversy over the style of policing is reverberating again after a Staten Island man died of a chokehold while being arrested for illegally selling cigarettes.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/nyregion/author-of-broken-windows-policing-defends-his-theory.html?mwrsm=Email

 
It’s Time to End ‘Broken Windows’ Policing | The Nation:

http://m.thenation.com/article/177842-its-time-end-broken-windows-policing

Broken windows policing deaths: Racism in chokeholds, arrests, and convictions:


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/broken_windows_policing_deaths_racism_in_chokeholds_arrests_and_convictions.html
 

March In Washington Draws Thousands Of Protesters Demanding Justice For All
12/13/2014
Huffington Post

 
At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, hundreds of people began to gather at the Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. By noon, the crowd had swelled to thousands. The protesters began marching through the nation's capital to call for justice and decry racial discrimination in light of recent deaths of black men at the hands of the police.

The crowd rallied through the city demanding "justice for all," the slogan that lent the protest its name. The Justice For All march was a response to recent decisions by two separate grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York, which declined to indict the white police officers responsible for the deaths of, respectively, 18-year-old Michael Brown and 43-year-old Eric Garner.

The families of police shooting victims, including relatives of Brown, Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley and John Crawford, led the march.

The demonstration was organized by the National Action Network, a civil rights organization headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton joined the families as they marched through Washington Saturday.

"We are not anti-police; we are anti-police-brutality," Sharpton told protesters. "And today we challenge Congress to follow in the president's footsteps and take legislative action to protect us, the citizens."

"Do not be silent. Do not be complacent. Do not continue to live with police misconduct and violence as somehow acceptable," Sharpton urged earlier this week in a piece he wrote for The Huffington Post.

Trevon Ferguson, a 14-year-old from Long Beach, New York, said he had traveled about five hours to attend the march in D.C., and planned to head back with his family this afternoon. He said he has never had a problem with police officers, but constantly fears them.

“Sometimes I feel like, you never know, I might be the next Trayvon Martin or the next Eric Garner. So who’s to say that a cop wouldn’t come and just shoot me and leave me in the street?” Ferguson told HuffPost. “So I’m here to make sure that me and my family are treated equally, just as any white boy or girl. Dr. King believed in equality, so I’m here for equality.”

The mothers of Rice, Garner, Brown and Trayvon Martin, a black teenager who was shot in 2012 by a neighborhood watch volunteer, appeared together in public for the first time Friday night. In a joint interview on CNN, the women spoke out against racial discrimination and argued that their sons might not have died if they had been white.

"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing -- even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day -- they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day ... I believe that 100 percent," Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

The deaths of these black men have become part of a narrative that many believe is all too common in the United States.

"We are together. We are united. We are standing. And we are going to fight this together," Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother, told the crowd before she began to lead the march. "You guys mean the world to us."

Garner's mother also approached the podium and praised the diversity of the crowd.

"Look at the masses," she said. "Black, white, all races, all religions ... We need to stand like this at all times."

In recent weeks, protesters around the country have participated in demonstrations to decry racial injustice and police brutality.

Dion Anderson, a 42-year-old from Washington, D.C., said he “felt obligated” to come to the event because of his own negative experiences with police officers, especially growing up.

"When I was eight years old, we were at the basketball court playing basketball and a Prince George’s County police officer -- I’m tearing up right now thinking about it -- just came on the basketball court and flattened [the ball], and just left. For no reason. So that’s why I’m obligated to come down,” Anderson said. “I even got scars on the back of my head from Prince George’s County Police Department … So police brutality has been rampant in my life.”

Many of the signs and chants from protests around the country have used the slogan that has become synonymous with the movement: "Black lives matter."

That same message was echoed by protesters who participated in the Justice For All march on Saturday. Here are some powerful images:

The slideshow below will be updated with images throughout the day.