(Or at least as far as I know she is.)
Her name is Jasmine Richards, and she was arrested by Pasadena PD last month six days after a peaceful demonstration marking the first anniversary of the murder-by-police of Kendrick McDade, whose mother, Anya Slaughter, was with her at the protest. The group had made demands for more answers to the apparent investigation into his death. Local prosecutors had deemed his killing justifiable, saying that officers believed that McDade was armed due to the fact that the man who’d phoned 911 for help in the ‘armed robbery’ of his taco truck had told them so. As it turned out, he was unarmed.
Jasmine, who Tweets as #blmDena, had also been active in the Ferguson protests after the execution of Michael Brown by police, so she may have been quite well-known to the Officers Friendly in both cities.
And he put his hand in his waistband ‘just outside the police car’, and bam! Well, you can read the official version here, but
From anonhq.com:
“She is currently being held on a $90,000 bail and activists say that some other charges have been added to the terror charge.
A press statement from BLM-Los Angeles (BLM-LA) said just hours before Jasmine was slated to attend the Pasadena City Council meeting and share new information from the Office of Independent Review’s Gennaco report on the police brutal killing of black person- Kendrec McDade, police officers took Jasmine into custody [on March 30].
“Initially citing a “failure to appear” charge, police later amended that with charges of making “terrorist threats”, trespassing, petty theft, assault and evading the police”, the statement said.” [snip]
“Kendrec McDade was said to have been brutally executed by Pasadena police officers Newlen and Griffin on March 24, 2012. After shooting Kendrec 8 times without even bothering to get out of their patrol car, the police then ran over his body and left him bleeding on the street for an hour and a half. No call for paramedics, or even a call to his mother who he cried for as he was dying was made. His mother is said to have learned of the death of her son in the newspaper the next day.
Meanwhile, police officers Newlen and Griffin still patrols the streets of Pasadena as free men, without even being picked up for questioning in connection to the grave crime they had committed against this innocent black gentleman.
Melina Abdullah, another organizer of BLM, said that ever since Jasmine took part in that protest, police have targeted her in order to discredit her work as a community leader in Pasadena.
“As an active member of Black Lives Matter – Pasadena, Jasmine Richards’ activism against police brutality has made her a highly visible target for police harassment. These current charges are an attempt by law enforcement officials to mis-characterize Jasmine and undermine her work as a galvanizing force in the Black community of Pasadena”, she said.”
But here’s where it gets weird. I’d been monitoring Jasmine’s Twitter account for news updates, and there’s oddly been nothing posted since April 20, including no mention as to whether her bail had been crowd-funded, and if it had, had the cops let her out of jail, as sometimes happens, and with charges of ‘Ter’ism’, who knows?
Zo. A-googling I went again this morning, and discovered this piece at the Pasadena Star dated April 3, and protestors had still been crowd-funding on April 18: ‘Local Pasadena activist Jasmine Richards released from jail’ (after posting bail) The piece says that neither Richards nor BlackLivesMatter organizers could be reached for comments.
Now it turns out that the San Gabriel Valley Tribune had obtained court documents they published on March 26 that showed a small portion of the LA County’s Office of Independent Review investigation into the case citing that “in the wake of the officer-involved slaying of Kendrec McDade criticized the officers for “repeated tactical errors” they committed in the moments before the teen’s death”. The bad news is that under incredible pressure by the police officers union, and aided by a panel of judges, the OIR report has been sealed from ‘public scrutiny’ just as ‘personnel jackets are, and must be’. (Pfffft.) Their report “criticized the officers for “repeated tactical errors” they committed in the moments before the teen’s death”, much in the way Richards said, Richards’ claim that new information had been leaked to her, and that she intended to read into the City Council’s record, leaves one wondering what’s afoot.
Questions: Have the police and their supporters effectively neutralized her by possibly: making her a deal consisting of lowering her bail in trade for not speaking out to the Pasadena City Council? Or not speaking out to the press or even via BlackLivesMatter? Not even #BlackLivesMatterLA’s Facebook page is saying anything (except for the many racist trolls, that is). Or is this just my brand of Coincidence Theory speaking? Did someone higher up in the Power Structure decide that charge wouldn’t even be a bailable offense, and reduce it?
Update: It’s not a great excuse as excuses go, but some past brain damage, among other things, caused me to have epic trouble with Time, including just about every measure of it: years, months, days, and so on. Last night I realized that I’d meant to include a video of Jasmine speaking, but not the one I’m about to embed. This came from a link I included above, and hadn’t finished due to the poor sound quality. But oy; it’s dated April 8, five days after the date that pasadenanews.com published her release on April 3. I’m starting at the point she describes her bail reduction, etc. Still, she gives no clues as to why those charges are being pursued.
Anyway, please accept my apologies, and know I’ll update this thread as I do find news on her court date.
Moar Potential Terrorist Dissidents:
From eastbayexpress.com: ‘Counter-Terrorism Officials Helped Track Black Lives Matter Protesters; A cache of California Highway Patrol emails provides a glimpse into how anti-terrorism agents helped law enforcement officials monitor Black Lives Matter protesters on the web’
One snippet:
“The Twitter user @domainawareness, whose tweets were collected by the police and used as intel, reviewed some of the CHP emails that we obtained. “It’s the coordination that’s disturbing,” said @domainawareness, whom the Express has agreed to not identify. “Everything’s totally fusion center-oriented and the information is going very high up.” [snip]
“Another email circulated among CHP commanders on December 11 included a two-page brief on the department’s undercover operations in Oakland and Berkeley in which at least four CHP officers were “[e]mbedded with protesters.” According to the brief, these were Terrorism Liaison Officers from CHP’s Investigative Services Unit (ISU).” SWAT teams were often called for backup in such terrifying events like ‘bridge shutdowns’ and the like.”
Let’s hear from @domainawareness him/herself:
“Still, National Guard spokesman Capt. Quinn defended the militarized language as standard for the planning process ahead of deployment.
In an email to CNN, he said the documents used in the Ferguson mission briefings were “a generic military planning format utilized in a wide range of military missions, so the term ‘enemy forces’ would be better understood as ‘potential threats.’ Often in Guard operations, threats would include inclement weather, heat, failing levees, etc.“
Thanks, Captain Quinn; ‘your enemies’ were akin to inclement weather; what a bloody relief to know!
But c’mon! We need moar fusion centers, cuz 72 of them (as of just 2010) aren’t enough for Fighting the domestic Rabble Enemy Protestors via Total Information Awareness, nossir.
Now, who are the Terrorists, again?
Palm Beach County
Chicago
Sandpoint, Idaho
Atlanta
Baton Rouge (horrific++ warning)
Well, you get the ‘so many bad apples’ drift.
Bonus from the Guardian: ‘Cubans to open talks about US fugitives including Assata Shakur as ties warm: State Department says Cuba has agreed to open talks about two of the most-wanted US fugitives following re-establishment of diplomatic ties’
Before you flip your zoris, at least for now we don’t need to be too worried.
“A Cuban government spokesman did not return calls seeking comment on Wednesday, but Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat for US affairs, recently ruled out any return of political refugees.
On Tuesday night she said that “the Cuban government recognizes the president of the United States’ just decision to take Cuba off a list in which it should never have been included.”
(The list was ‘state sponsors of Terror‘)
So, we can hope that Cuba stays solid on not extraditing Assata to the US. Hint: @Assata Speaks is probably not one of the CIA’s fake Twitter accounts.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Jesus Fucking H Christ Wendye
Unbelievable and yet all to frigging believable these days.
I will share this (now that I have been taught the ancient art of apple copy and paste) on my Facebook page.
Jesus fucking Christ
posted on my Facebook page as well as Minneapolis Black Lives Matter
Wendye Davis dear, you have created a copy paste monster. LOL
Best to you and Mr Wendye Davis.
good to hear that you’ll share it, monster cavlan. it’s hard to keep any equanimity about all this given how pervasive it is, and the fact that almost no cops are ever indictment, much less convicted for killing unarmed black, brown, and other poor and ‘disposable’ people.
it’s got to stop. but yeah: ‘terrorism’, holy crow. i’ll keep watching for news and hope she surface one day soon. ha, i remember her and her little while megaphone from ferguson protest livestreams. she practically danced with passion and youthful vigor.
best to you and mz. monster as well. ;-)
The Art break was a nice diversion and thanks to both CP and Barbara for showing that the mean streets of the Dog City have room for something as interesting as Barbara’s work.
This new story has a couple of important issues to examine and this young woman’s appearance will likely help the security forces sell their terror and fear agenda, just look at her headscarf, she must be a Muslim. I hope you can find out what ‘Terrorist Threats’ she allegedly made, they couldn’t have been that dramatic or they would never have released her from jail.
The response by the PTB to these grassroots reactions to repression and violence don’t seem to have changed much in the last century, undermine, infiltrate and discredit still seem to work but the technology has changed.
It is ironic and dangerous that the new technologies that are hyped as necessary tools for organizing movements today are actually used by the Security State to make their work disabling these movements much easier and more immediate. The Watchers probably get a big laugh from the fact that the rubes have to buy the tool of their surveillance and load their communications onto collection sites to ease their monitoring.
hmmm, i’d figured her scarf was just a nylon do-rag like stevie van zandt wears, apparently an old african custom.
but yes, social networking is sure a double-edged sword, isn’t it? well, from the eastbayexpress link on the CHIPS tlo panic, this seems to be enough:
“The document includes screenshots of tweets, including three from East Bay resident Noura Khouri who took part in the protests. Khouri had tweeted two days before, “Since were dreaming @thehoopoe how about the bay bridge shut down + port shut down + general strike #shutitdown <3." On December 9 Gareth Lacy, a press officer with Caltrans forwarded to CHP commanders a similar tweet composed by @reclaimuc which stated: "may 2, 1992: UC berkeley and berkeley high students occupy bay bridge after acquittal of cops who beat Rodney king." Records show that CHP interpreted social media postings like these as evidence that the Bay Bridge was going to be shut down by protesters.
Acting on this fear, on December 12, CHP Assistant Chief Paul Fontana wrote his commanders requesting special response teams from other divisions. "I would also like to request SWAT," wrote Fontana, referring to the heavily armed special weapons and tactics team."
damn, it took me some time to remember the name of this; clarence is still alive, whoosh.
and yeah, i'll keep watching for news, and a court date.
i got to picturing rappers with do-rags, and some with hairnets (reckoning that since some gangs do, it gave them street cred or something). i remembered that on her twitter account, someone referenced one of jasmine’s performances. so…a-binging i went, and found this author (Dr. Melina Abdullah) with jasmine and someone else, and the text made me think jasmine may do some hip-hop, although i can’t find any on youtube.
http://www.dominiquediprima.com/?p=10848
They let that terrrisss out to roam the streets of Pasadena with a do rag on her head and a hat on top of it? Dayum. Going all to hell in a handbasket we are.
Jeeze. The main tactic these days seems to be to target the best and brightest and most outspoken of the new generation of activists and protesters (bless them, every one) and to go after them hammer and tong with whatever it takes to shut them up or shut them down.
That means that some, like Jasmine, will be over-charged with bogus claims of making terrriss threats or what ever. They were doing something like it in Oakland, recall, when the Alameda County DA was charging Occupy participants with all kinds of ridiculous things, and the po-po were issuing stay-away orders. Now they’re doing it more comprehensively to any BLM activist who looks like they might be a “threat.”
A threat to power.
It’s occurred to me that the ones who aren’t harassed with these bogus charges — and other things — aren’t seen as threats, are they?
MLK was most definitely seen as a threat back in the day.
Oh yes.
Sigh. Yes, Deray McKesson, for instance. Bassem they were after, are after, but although a Muslim, haven’t charged with terrorism…yet. There’s some curious about this whole story though, and I hope it will see the light of day.
But O.M.G. Is it possible that Brother Cornell West is the new version of MLK to either the PTB, or just the Democrat gatekeepers?
https://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/cornel-wests-impermissible-opinions/
and the ‘Michael Eric Dyson’s Hatchet Eulogy for Cornel West’ piece just before it. I love Brother Cornell, even after feeling betrayed by his announcement that he’d vote for Obama in his send bid for Prez. But the man is the real deal, as in having organized this recently:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ShutDownA14?src=hash
added, though exhausted: it’s not by way of actual assassination, but by total character assassination/annihilation. it makes me want to throw up.
MLK was a threat after 1967 but these poor folks are no real threat even though their and his ideas could be a future threat so examples must be made to remind people who has the power, again.
Since we do music video’s n such AND there was a mention of gangs n dew rags. Here- X Vandals. Enjoy. Their basic message is that it is not white middle class comfortable liberals who will change things. Nope- it will come from poor working class kids of color.
‘bandana republic’: catchy. well, yes, the movements are down to the young uns, and third worlders, especially women, imo. we just boost the signals as we’re able. but i gotta go fetch a ‘treble army’ that BAR had on their sidebar forever.
Disc O’bama … B-D B-Damn straight, he SHOULD be dancing.
I wonder who is that prescient radical in the 40+ yr old TV interview?
H. Rap Brown
nomad; how nice to see you (and hieronymus bosch) here. yes, it took us awhile to come to that same conclusion. damn, the panthers knew what was afoot.
ha, nice to see you Lemoyne. mr. wd and i have been pondering that, as he’s in so many videos, including the oldie featuring (tada!) a young angela davis, as well as monster cavlan’s x-vandals. as an aside, she’s made some public statements recently that have truly confounded me)
but we rejected many panthers images digging thru our aging memory banks, and mr. finally suggested h. rap brown. bingo, i’m pretty certain.
obama, of course, is always dancing, in the way oil spits outta frying pan so that is doesn’t land in the Fire.
Henry Giroux has a good article on the attack on Cornel West – this excerpt from his assessment (article is at counterpunch.org):
“. . . West’s politics are performative, and are not tied to the printed word. Is he at times a bit theatrical, sometimes appearing self-indulgent? That seems a minor, if not irrelevant, criticism compared to his ongoing attempts to fuse theory with action, and reach into history in order to reclaim those elements of public memory long forgotten. . . He works with social movements and does so as an intellectual not a prophet or an isolated academic scholar. He is an intellectual because he believes in the power of ideas not the rewards given to those in the academy who become servants of power. And he believes that such power is collective not individual, the product of social movements and ongoing struggles not the abstract rhetoric of isolated and often irrelevant academics. Moreover, he does not think within a single discipline and understands that there is no closure in history.
History is open but it is only open to change if there are struggles, if a collective consciousness emerges that understands the nature of a new historical moment and the forces at work necessary to change it. . . West’s politics is a call to educated hope, a recognition that knowledge can only speak to power and truth when people can locate themselves in the narratives it provides. West does that and he does it brilliantly and he does it as a public intellectual who not only embarrasses liberals but provocatively reveals their most poisonous and cowardly attributes. West is not a hero; he is not a celebrity; he is not a political romantic. On the contrary, he is a fighter. . .”
I would agree on the disappointment about advocating for Obama’s re-election. I have that about a lot of prominent ‘progressives’. I’d like to hear mea culpas before accepting what they say or do, even though West is saying and doing more than most.
how timely, juliania. i’d just been finishing an overly-long comments to tarzie on that post (while trying to get some major baking finished), so i stuck in your link. well, giroux’s link:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/27/the-perils-of-being-a-public-intellectual/
yep, i remember being deflated that he would vote for him, but a few people have pointed out since all this ‘liberal gate-keeping’ assassination of the man has grown, that he’d also said that he’d continue to call him out more than before (not that it’s an apology, of course). i guess continuing the struggle in his case is good enough for me, but then, i’m quite taken by the man’s performances. i can’t speak to the quality or content of his books, though, since i haven’t read any. in some interview he’d mentioned a 19th century poet he loved, and i’ll try to remember to look him up, and if i can find where i stuck his name again. ;-)
So damned tired of the funerals…
Been watching Freddie Gray’s funeral in Baltimore on the livestream, and it was so moving, especially Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant’s call to rise up and keep fighting for the dignity and justice that is due all, not just the privileged few.
But man, there have been so many funerals of so many killed, more than 800 since Mike Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, over 1,000 since James Boyd was gunned down in Albuquerque, lord knows how many more since Kendric McDade was gunned down in Pasadena, gunned down ’cause the po-po were scared and all fired up and ready, oh so ready, to kill an unarmed black man running away, running for his life. Thousands have been killed by police since then. Thousands.
Of those thousands, a third or more were completely unarmed and no threat at all to the police or anyone else. A third were mentally ill or suicidal. A third were black.
It’s insane, this killing spree. And it will end. But not, I’m sure, before more hundreds or thousands are killed.
RIP Freddie Gray; RIP
Many more will have to suffer. Many more will have to die. Don’t ask me why.
Things are just the way they used be. Won’t tell no lie.
he’s the main reason for the site name and second name, nomad. ‘babylon system’ really resonates more and more for all of the rabble class.
thanks for the reminder, my friend.
I thought so!!! That’s what I was thinking. She’s got to be referring to Babylon System.
“Bab be lon seestym is the vampiah
Sucking the blood of the sufferers.
…
Me say they graduating thieves and murderers
Look out now”
Look at what we have graduated. Obama. Holder. Lynch. Jarret, Jeh, Rice and the rest of that high tone crew.
“They sucking the blood of the sufferers.
Tell the children the truth. Tell the children the truth. Tell the children the truth.” (repeat many times)
yah; she was! ;-) i had to go into the site customization thingie to be remind that ‘soul food and freedom music’ is the *tagline*.
but yes: we are the vampire. yeppers, quite an array of ‘successful blacks’ in this administration, eh? if ya added all of them together, ya wouldn’t find one whole conscience, either. in these times, is ‘lynch’ almost too much satire for the new AG? some.optics.
ooooo…much too much…Holder then Lynch…shudder
what do you reckon this woman was trying to express? the two comments seemed to disagree.
but good on marc lamont hill and his Truth Telling; and on cnn to boot.
(i need to take care of some chores for a bit; be back.)
Hey. I wrote a reply to this yesterday. Forgot to send it. Alzheimer’s probably. Anyway, I said Hill turned the term “riot” on its head. “Uprising”. An empowering word. Good for him.
Cornish seems to be expressing anguish. Startling imagery. Might be necessary.
my dementia leads me to believe that my silent rehearsals were accomplished *in fact*; nice to know you do it, too. ;-) yes, ‘uprising’ i just right. i hope you’re right about cornish. we’ve just so many nooses from white supremacists lately, that…i’d half-feared she wasn’t conflating pat and present history. remember the installation of hanged effigies at berzerkeley recently? turned out, that’s what the artists were expressing.
The difference would likely be context. I didn’t pay attention to the Berkley? incident. I think she’s saying “they’re lynching my babies”. Harkening back to “Strange Fruit”. If she’s black she’s got a right. But like I say. Startling. Sometimes startling is necessary.
you’v got me weeping again, amigo. i saw stills from the funeral, and those were hard enough. i’ll look for rev. bryant’s urgings after some rest.
perhaps the most chilling sign over the years-long protests was
“Please stop making us remember so many names!”
but fuck it, the hits just keep on comin;, don’t they? this week, just to choose one: ‘Long Beach Police Shoot & Kill Unarmed Teen Through Window For Graffiti On Abandoned Building’
the usual: “but he aimed a gun at me through the window!”
his mother when she saw them lading her son into the ambulance:
“When he saw her, he propped himself partially up and cried to her, “Mommy, Mommy, please come, please come!” She walked towards the ambulance, identified herself as his mother, expecting to ride with him to the hospital, but was pushed back by a man in a blue uniform. She asked what happened and was told that no one knew.” R. Samuel Paz, the lawyer representing the Morejon family wrote in a statement.”
Shades of graffiti artist Michael Stewart crying ‘i can’t breathe!’ (spike lee’s ‘do the right thing’), but with a twist. He was murdered by police like Eric Garner, who’d been selling single ciggies as an excuse for his extra judicial execution. (a decent cover of the michelle shocked tune)
19-year-old Hector Morejon was ghetto-Latino, and expendable.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/long-beach-police-shoot-unarmed-teenager-window-tagging-abandoned-building-year-executing-fleeing-suspect-camera/
added on edit: ooopsies, if forgot thi fukkery:
Baltimore Sun has lowered their paywall for the duration — or at least for now — so some mainstream updates are there.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/
I looked at the Washington Post’s live blog of the situation on Baltimore, and it was practically nothing but fearmongering and flame-fanning — much of it “official” in the form of statements from mayor, gubna, police chief, et al. Plenty of false statements passed along unquestioned. Ugly, nasty business. It reminded me of the kinds of false reporting based on official lies that went on during so many of the urban uprisings of yore, false reporting that led to panic — which I guess was the reason why they did it and are doing it now.
WJZ has been fanning the flames as well, fueling panic with so much of their television coverage, and they’ve taken some flak for it from the very officials they otherwise are relying on for “news.”
Many of those in the alternative media (livestream and twitterverse primarily) are pointing out the lies upon lies that officials are relying on to justify whatever is to come.
As I recall what was being said, the riots started because of the presence of hundreds of riot police outside Douglass High School when school let out for the day. Public transportation had been ordered shut down, so many students couldn’t get home. The police were aggressive, and some were taunting. Students reacted with taunts of their own, and some threw things at the police. The fight was on, and some are saying the police deliberately incited the rioting as evidenced by what happened at the high school and the mall nearby, and by the (completely) false statement put out by Batts that the “gangs” had vowed to take out police officers and so on. False from first to last.
Batts, btw, was Oakland’s police chief who resigned under a big ol’ cloud just before Occupy settled into Ogawa/Grant Plaza facing down the lies and brutality of Howard Jordan and the OPD. Jordan was Batts’s #2 at OPD.
Those on the ground trying to tell the truth don’t necessarily have a wide perspective, but the officials who should know better are making the situation worse. Deliberately? Could be.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
whoa, i hadn’t known that batts history; now we know…pfffft.
the way i’d read it, the kids were on the buses already when they were unloaded, no public buses available, so hordes of police effectively kettled them. must have been terrifying. at first folks on the ground were saying the kids staged a walkout to join the protests, so that may not have been so. or else both are so. apparently some kids were still stranded as of last night.
i put up some tweets on the ‘freddie gray’ post, some great historical quotes that are quite illustrative for explanations. oakland had some solidarity, but the photos seem to be from baltimore. but look at the hanging babies; i don’t know what to make of it. early on, i read that the fire dept. said the big fire had nothing to do with the protests, but that won’t stand.
on that thread is video of the po-po throwing rocks at the kids, or at least protestors. there’s another like it on the blackout collective account.
https://twitter.com/blackoutcollect
The notion that the whole thing yesterday and last night in Baltimore was incited by the police echoes what was going on in Ferguson.
I wasn’t there, so I can’t say, of course, and even if I was there, I wouldn’t necessarily know for sure what was going on or who was responsible for what.
The minute herself-hyphenated started in with her “thug-this” and “thug-that” though, and reports started coming in about the lies told in that police handout about the “gangs,” and other lies about the students, it was clear to me that the police under Batts and the Mayor’s Office were colluding to make the protests into the actions of some despicable Other to be feared and denounced as thoroughly as one might fear and denounce the… terrorists.
Others quicker and brighter than me picked up on it from days ago when the Authorities kept blathering about “outside agitators” and the police union’s lynch mob analogy wasn’t challenged straight up by Batts and herself-the-mayor-Blake.
I looked up the location of the Big Fire that got all that airplay last night. I was well away from the “riots,” in another part of town altogether. It was being shown on WJZ while the statements were coming from the Mayor’s presser (“thug-thug-thug-thug”) and the Gubna’s hoo-hah about the National Guard and whatnot.
But the fire was across town from the “riots.” The fires in West Baltimore where the “riots” were were mostly of police vehicles and trash in the streets (some exceptions like CVS). The Big Fire at the senior center which was under construction didn’t fit. It was something else, though you would never know it from WJZ’s coverage.
There were apparently some other fires scattered around the downtown and elsewhere which gave the appearance that the whole city was in flames, but it wasn’t true. The fires and their scattered locations were being used by officials and the media to fan the flames of panic. We’ll probably never know for sure what caused them or who set them. Instead, they’ll be used to justifiy … whatever Authority wishes to do.
The WaPo’s coverage is utterly shameful and disgusting, as apparently is most of the mainstream’s.
They are desperately trying to turn the issue away from police violence to panic over thug-terrorist-negroes running wild in the streets — “see, this is what happens if you don’t kill them first.”
sigh. i might have to read more coverage later (if i have the stomach for it). my email provider’s home page was incendiary enough for now, and the few pieces i clicked into that were on the #freddiegray account.
but dig it: police band mentions of ‘ten kids together’ (means trouble), etc.; so what to they do? close the schools. at least high school kids are being invited to the ’empowerment temple’, whatever that is. what happens to the others? a hasty ‘take your kid to work day’? curfews, state of emergency, i forget how many national guard, helicopters. the sound of those thing are just made for ptd. oh, and ‘looting’. my stars, there are plenty of apparently ‘civil’ black men on the hashtag making hay out of that.
on the other hand, i can just imagine the rage many feel about the payday loan places, can’t you? dunno about cvs angle, i’ve never been in one.
The link to the FTP story about that murder in Long Beach brought up the strange factoid that Tony Batts was a LBPD Cop for 27 years ending up as Chief before moving to Oakland. Another interesting fact is that he was known to be a wife and girlfriend beater while he upheld law and order.
well i missed it (small wonder), so thank you, wayoutwest). the most vicious police seem to advance, and moved to new locations for their ‘expertise’ in dealing with the rabble. the same site as well as countercurrent news has insane amounts of examples of cops beating, raping, dealing, snorting, etc. with almost no repercussions. meanwhile, #OperationHoodsOff is still outing the klan members involved in so many levels of government and the police state.
There’s also the story that Batts and Rawlins-Blake are an item…
Do they hand out barf bags when they bring that news about mayor hyphenated and batts the sheepdog? just curious.
I’m in agreement with Ché Pasa and thank him for his observations. I saw on one report that the destroyed senior center had been under construction since 2006 – that seems an awfully long time and quite a few seniors must have died waiting. Perhaps resentment at the slow pace of it, hard to know from a distance but so many untold abuses must be churning in this maelstrom.
Remember that ‘cone of silence’ ? I think it was Conan who spoofed it way back. Too many coincidental eruptions, mini and not so mini.
I am so glad you made use of the link wendye. I used it again this morning at nakedcapitalism.com links with respect to Greece. The public looks behind the violence and intransigence to question who benefits. Convergence of many different parts of the community, not fragmentation.
just by way of a note: i enabled nested comments again to see how we like it; there’s a Reply choice above a comment if that’s what you choose to do. (seems like Ché remembers, and i too often forget. ;-)
glad you lent the link, but tarzie and i seem rather at odds over it all, and it was kinda funny that monsieur giroux seemed a bit in accordance with my explanations, although his use of imagery (especially historical and intellectual) far surpassed my bumbling attempts at communication).
but yes to all the rest. if we refuse to peer into history as to these causes, or acknowledge what our national/state/city policies, both formal and de facto are…there will be hell to pay for the white supremacist nation one day. is this the day it starts?
A bright spot in the Baltimore uprising/breakdown is the statement by the Orioles COO John Angelos (son of team owner) collected off of twitter by USA Today —
I am pleased to note that this USA Today story has over 500,000 shares. A quick scan of Angelos’ Twitter feed seems to show that the Orioles were not consulted, instead they were told to postpone their games. Of course, the curfew will prevent any home games from being played in Baltimore… and prevent the operation of many other businesses.
Also good coverage on DemocracyNow! — Amy continues to raise the point that Freddie Gray was arrested purely for ‘running while
blackin a high crime area’ and that the city officials there continue to defend the arrest on that basis. Her guests add that the city refuses to divulge the basic facts that are known on the ground. Here in Albuquerque that kind of stonewalling appears to be a success – in Baltimore Not.So.Much.my stars, lemoyne; what solidarity and framing by john angelos! the world will mainly note that ‘the fame was cancelled’ (as was school, so stupidly and potentially dangerously for the chirren). good on him, good on you for bringing it, and good on amy. yes. she may have her limitations, but at least she often frames the story right, but as her detractors are wont to say: not often.
‘nother note: we seem to have comments on baltimore ‘riots!’ on both this thread and the Freddie Gray (oh, my: can you ever rest in peace?) thread, just so’s ya know, darlin’.
I wonder if commenter nomad knows his username is also a call-sign used by the Cops in Grosse Pointe Michigan, a bastion of White supremacy. NOMAD, Ni**er On Mack After Dark refers to the main business street Mack Av. and any unlucky non-White person who dares to stroll or drive down this street after sundown.
lol; we shall soon see, i reckon.
More music- Enjoy
The latest El Machete cartoon “Defending Crime”, lays out the standard by which ‘terrorists’ are selected. Anyone not defending
crimethe police is a suspect and anyone threatening to penetrate their shield wall is clearly making “terroristic threats”.page not found. it would seem that the new mexico mercury carries the el machete cartoons, but i can’t find that one after a brief search.
thanks michael cavlan.
for baltimore, and oldie i love witless’ (the have a new album called ‘drones’ but i don’t know the songs yet):
(we’d blast it before going down to occupy mancos on saturday morns back in the day. (ack, on crutches for me; what a spectacle that mustta been.)
#Black Lives Matter…Do Matter!
With the protesters’ riot in Baltimore, reminds me of my earlier days. And here’s why?
Today, any vestiges of Self-Restraint has been jettisoned and tossed into the trash bin of accumulated History and thusly, for these past several years, I have not taken the time or had the inclination to address this subject area in which an “innocent” person can become subjected to the Status Quo of power. And here’s why?
To wit, when a blind man using a cane went to a shopping mall with his mother, and while waiting for the mother and who was at the cash register, he went outside and “waited around” for the mother to come out. He, the African American blind man with a cane was challenged by another person—that being a European American, for being his usual self while standing next to the exit door. Consequently, the other person while wearing the uniform of a security guard, harassed the blind man, and subsequently, the security guard stipulated he was “doing his job” and the blind man with the cane stipulated that “Your job is to protect!”
And from therein, is the contrast that is facing our America even in daily life and thusly, this well-recognized behavior as a failure for exercising any vestige of Self-Restraint. And if you’re blind and can’t see, you become today’s Exemplar for a status quo of a second-class citizenship and therefore, being blind, both literally and figuratively, you become subjected to the preponderance of Power and as exercised by the Majority, and in this instance, in the formal or corporate construct of a security guard.
In closing and when the law enforcement endeavor is detrimental to the community, our Elected and Appointed Officials, have failed, and failed big time.
Note: Originally posted on the website for the Chicano Veterans Organization.
Jaango
hey, jaango. i wasn’t quite sure where you were going with this at the beginning, but yes, any matter of characteristics can deem a person harassable by the ‘serve and protect not’ officers friendly: class, color, clothing, ‘loitering in groups’, mentally ill…and goddess save the person who fails to obey po-po orders immediately. not that all are even able to, but that doesn’t matter to the psychopaths among them.
did you get my answer after your last visit and comment? i’d given you this registration/contact me page again just in case. although this is a convenient way to comment and even bring posts if it works better for you. there’s always an Open Menu under the categories list on the right sidebar, too. we stick all manner of things there that we find of interest. i do need to make a new one and finish a ‘how to write diaries here’ post i’m working on, as well, but i keep getting waylaid along the way, and . ;-)
https://cafe-babylon.net/category/registration-and-contact-me/
i just peeled a bag of roasted poblanos for green chile; wish i could share.
Wendy,
I tend to be somewhat pedantic when I write, but I am looking forward to your post for posting diaries, and where my diary would be considered for a Front Page Post. Or perhaps, not pedantic but self-aggrandizement. :_).
but once again you’ve neglected to let me know if you’ve tried, but failed, to register. without that, i cannot able you as an author. re: front-paging, all are on the page, as i don’t hae a static front page. but: i reserve the right (as always) to put a ‘More’ break very early on. with the barbarian’s, it hasn’t worked, but even now, i’m not sure why that is/was/.
as an aside, when i’m able to get into fdl, i do drudge thru ctuttle’s ‘late night’ threads to see if he has any news. for many weeks he’s said that kevin g is advising him that ‘soon we will move to a new server’, and jane hamsher herself will make some announcement. .now whether that means they/she will reconstitute my.fdl is anyone’s guess. for me? i wonder if after all these months how many will ever come back to *any tabs* of firedoglake.
i like ‘pedantic’ (yes, it works) and aren’t all of us online at least a little bit hoping to aggrandize our thoughts and opinions? ;-)
anyhoo, here, so far, all have equal say in authoring posts, even though i admit freely not anticipating being able to respond to all posts in the future if the site develops more widely.
Ack! at 4 a.m. i woke up and realized that you’d thought i’d meant style or content directions for writing here. egad. what i’d meant is that wordpress has been taking away features from the *blogging software* here bit by bit. the most recent ‘fix’ was to make us use some stupid ‘easy and better’ turquoise blue’ page called bing-bong or something. it is pretty useless, and ugly to boot.
there has been a bit of an insurrection by peeps on a forum demanding, begging, wheedling, for the return of the Classic Editor, quite like my.fdl’s wordpress blogging software.
anyway, long story short, while trying to find the solution to a whole ‘nother problem, i found a way to get to the old editor, only it requires using chrome. it’s a bit complicated, but i’ve been working on a post to stick in the ‘categories’ list as a help sheet, you pendant, you. ;-)
I hate that new editor. It’s really cumbersome. I’m thinking of going back to blogger since I can’t seem to upload Chrome on this laptop.
it’s also fairly useless in any number of ways, but at least it’s New and Improved, plus Easier!™ ack.
can’t download chrome? is your laptop pc or mac? there must be different versions of chrome, but i can’t imagine eric schmidt having failed to make sure everyone can use it. or is it possible your OS refuses to interface with it? (as if i know what i’m talking about.) margo schulter says she can’t register here due to the fact that she uses linux, for instance.
while i loathe chrome, i do at least hope that workaround keeps working, or this site will become semi-worthless to me. but i really can’t move, given i’ve posted something like 377 diaries here (some from early my.fdl days, a few stories, etc.)
Chuckle. Yeah. I could move but I wouldn’t bother. I’d just start another blog. Or resume my old Blogger blog, Ironymous. Well if the dysfunction that caused me to abandon it in the first place can be resolved. I was hit by some kind of weird attack that only affected Blogger. I’ll try again to upload Chrome. But I suspect that the attack on my Blogger blog was facilitated by Chrome. Don’t trust it too much. I’ll try to find the warning I ran across a couple of years ago.
no reason to trust chrome, given: google. but i did check, and there is a version for mac. but i’d get it from google rather than cnet or any of the others.
and remember: google is not what it seems! ;-)
https://cafe-babylon.net/2015/02/13/julian-assange-google-is-not-what-it-seems-indeed/
Thanks for reminding me. Google is Blogger! Better stick with WP.
African-Americans Line Up to Protect White Baltimore Police
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/04/african-americans-line-up-to-protect-white-baltimore-police.html
is there some reason they believe they need to be protected? baffling, really.
Baffling? Maybe not.
Don’t forget all those BPD brave officers pelted with cinderblocks at the outset of the disturbances. Poor-poor po-po.
So of course they’d need protection, poor babies.
Then there’s this whole undercurrent of “who’s legitimately in charge?” Police have fucked up bad, not just over Freddy Gray and all the others they’ve killed and injured, but over things like Jasmine’s ridiculous arrest, and the snatch and grab last night of Joseph Kent live on CNN in Baltimore.
On and on an on. It’s de-legitimizing authority. They’re doing it to themselves with every killing, every brutalization, every act of violence. They’re doing it by their presence in their skirmish lines. Their “deployment” of crowd control tactics and munitions. Their sweat-soaked fear. (How many cities played out the same or a similar scene yesterday/last night? I’ve lost count.)
In the vacuum of legitimacy, someone will step forward. And that’s what’s been happening in Baltimore and elsewhere. This skirmish line of police appears to be protected by a line of black men facing the crowd. But the protectors are the legitimate ones, not the police.
The police may have armaments and the illusion of power, but they do not have the respect of the people.
I thought it a brilliant PR tactic. It mocks the police state. And really, this is a PR war. We counter your meme of rioting negroes with upstanding citizens with their backs turned to the police. There is a lot of symbolism in that. I hope it becomes a tactic used in other demonstrations, for for the police to attack such demonstrators reveal the naked brutality of system.
It was done in Ferguson as well. Clergy or in one case media formed a line in front of the police, and at least for a time, was able to prevent the police from attacking the demonstrators. It was a means of shaming the po-po.
In Baltimore, it seemed that there was an effort to convince the demonstrators to leave space between them and the police, so in that sense it was an effort to “protect” the police, but it also shows how absurd and deadly some of their tactics have been.
just a slight quibble, if i may. didn’t the moral majority ministers, and at least once the press, stand in front of the protestors *facing the police*? (gadzukes, this spell-check hates protestors spelled with two Os.)
as in: “you’ll have to come through us to get to them!”
Thanks. Good to know.
Oh. You think they are serious about protecting the police? Shows you how naïve I am. I never thought of that. If that IS what it is then it’s an abomination.
it was odd enough to me that i went to chris rock’s twitter to find out what comments were below it (i’d seen a wee version of the pic). you’d need to click on his twitter name and go down the list, click the time/date stamp of it to bring up the url and the comments, i think. comments were quite varied, one person claimed it was a photoshop. beats me, iow.
i can’t find eric garcia’s el machete cartoon failed page that lemoyne had linked to, but we did manage to find it on his twitter account. if you want it larger, hold down Control while pressing -, then ++ as many times as you care to.
You are right, I think. This is very very sad. I mean, damn! How far are we willing to go for right of policemen to gun us down in the street?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/baltimore-mom-smacks-son-taking-part-violence/story?id=30639845
sigh. i’d seen mama smackin’ the shit out of her son and demanding he come home from the ‘violent protests’. for me, it was sad to see how many people on #freddiegray sympathized with her.
the longer story, of course, is why this society loves violence, while claiming otherwise, of course. weaponization and violence are two of the attributes the nation was founded upon, from genocide, slavery, to the Empire’s quest for full-spectrum hegemony. failing now, being mightily challenged, but still. and part of it is that the authoritarians demand, and require, obeisance. ‘poisonous pedagogy‘, author alice miller called it (i keep an overflow free wordpress site). i concur. ‘tough love’ lauded by commissioner batts in the belfry. small wonder.
two images that keep replaying in my mind are i) the police demanding that the school chirren get off the bus, coupled with the fact that they’d shut down the entire bus system. then kettled the kids; and ii) the videos of officers friendly pelting protestors with rocks, then the protestors charging them. both that, and the massive police/national guard presence in riot gear can easily make one believe that the riots were constructed, but whether by plan or egregiously over-playing their faux authority is up for grabs.
losing legitimacy is certainly a developing theme, as is black militancy in its place. someone had linked to this page on which deray is on cnn with wolf blitzer (that name’s so hilarious it’s hard to type without laughing). he does pretty darned well, but on the right sidebar is one of those pundits, o’reilly or rush spouting “baltimore citizens (maybe black) should police themselves”. yep, exactly.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ferguson-activist-battles-cnns-blitzer-no-excuse-for-police-violence-either/
finally saw that chris rock and david simon are on the same page as far as condemning ‘the violence’. and i keep thinking of angela davis: “and you ask *Me* about violence??”
http://davidsimon.com/baltimore/
dded on edit: now hold the phone; do you mean that the cnn reporter was snatched on national teevee? now that might amplify police illegitimacy, eh?
and ah, yes, the president weighs in:
The Baltimore Sun @baltimoresun · 1h1 hour ago
Pesident Obama blames #FreddieGray response on years of disinvestment in city neighborhoods. http://bsun.md/1ds5peo
my guess it will all be in passive voice, and be devoid of anything he might have done to help it, much less all he’s done to exacerbate economic conditions.
As Deray and and many others are saying, the “violence” that has to stop is police violence. Once it does, behold, the disturbances will stop. Until it does, the disturbances will continue. And sometimes there will be a broken window or two or three or four. Windows can be replaced. Lost lives can’t be.
I thought he could have been a bit stronger with Wolf (is that his real name or is it… well… I won’t go there right now) but Wolf played his airhead routines and pretty much de-legitimized himself in that segment.
Looks like David Simon is being heavily trashed for his complacency and his demands for compliance (shades of Ta-Nehisi’s Atlantic piece). Looks like David Simon does not like it, either. Aw poor baby.
Stop violent policing and the disturbances — which might include broken windows — stop. Simple as that.
for deray, i thought he did well, and he echoed the themes of protestor on the ground, if a bit more weakly. can you explain: “(shades of Ta-Nehisi’s Atlantic piece)”? i’ve been having a bit of a discussion with an e-friend over ta-nehisi’s blackLivesMatter pieces over the past year. i will admit that i’ve been so angry that he’s joined the liberal punditry fray in the virtual assassination of brother cornell west that my bias may prevent me from grasping what he’s written.
but yes: blame any possible peripheral issue for the riots, not the killings by police. i did read the obama link, and it was nothing. one on the sidebar was exactly as i’d predicted, tragi-comic obfuscation, misdirection, and ‘i can do nothing!’ horseshit.
ah, i’d thought you’d meant that kent was there *for* cnn; i see. but it is kinda creeping me out that i can find absolutely no mention of jasmine richards online anywhere. bad portent, to my mind.
but now it’s all “freddie had neck surgery after an atv accident recently”; so that will make it into the autopsy results as: not the cops’ fault, ‘underlying complications’. is it all jive? will we ever know?
Oh, sorry. Ta-Nehisi wrote this thing for the Atlantic the other day which I largely agree with. Upshot being that the calls for “non-violence” in Baltimore are largely masking calls for compliance by Those Negroes — and it’s bullshit. I’ve had my disagreements with him over all kinds of things, but this time, I think he got it right.
People are giving David Simon what for in his comment section because he’s calling for “compliance” too, masking it as “non-violence.” He back-pedals like mad, but the damage is done.
Calls for “non-violence” by the protesters at a time like this without emphasizing the fact that the real violence is by the police and by an economic and legal injustice system that harms millions upon millions of Americans every day is crap, phony, a con, and a ruse.
Ta-Nehisi lays it out. Good.
I note Hillary is now calling for “police reform”. Bully for her. She even questions the merits of mass incarceration. My, my, my. And O’Malley has been taking a lot of heat in B’more for his zero tolerance policies when he was da mayor.
This is all coming to a head. What was it Robert Graves wrote in “I. Claudius?”
yes, i’d read that one (i edited in the correct link for you but your html knowledge is formidable). ;-) it’s not original thought, but yes, perhaps he’s reached some sort of saturation point. i’d thought you’d kinda conflated simon’s yech with something coates had penned. my chich was with this one, although i’d failed to see that it’s from last year. one excerpt:
“On Monday night, watching Obama both be black and speak for the state was torturous. One got the sense of a man fatigued by people demanding he say something both eminently profound and only partially true. This must be tiring.
Black people know what cannot be said. What clearly cannot be said is that the events of Ferguson do not begin with Michael Brown lying dead in the street, but with policies set forth by government at every level. What clearly cannot be said is that the people of Ferguson are regularly plundered, as their grandparents were plundered, and generally regarded as a slush-fund for the government that has pledged to protect them. What clearly cannot be said is the idea of superhuman black men who “bulk up” to run through bullets is not an invention of Darren Wilson, but a staple of American racism.”
well, that sort of gate-keeping is just plain wrong in a number of directions,
because of course it must be said! and is being said, thank goodness. especially given that obama, his doj, his wall street love, his love of corporate capitalism, his war on drugs (barely mitigated, but so-so theatrics), his endless commissions, love of al sharpton, etc. are in aid of not just the status quo, but an expansion of it. and what if ta-nehisi had spoken truth to power back then as part of the black librul pundit class?
but no, he and others spend ink on castigating cornell west, and my own take on that is that given that he’s one of the high profile members of the black prophetic tradition, *and* associated with the blm movement, they need to discredit him, marginalize him for the eventuality (?) that the ptb seriously trounce the movement. as with the occupy encampments. just coincidence theory on my part, of course.
I think you probably know I’ve had my issues with the phoniness surrounding calls for black non-violence while completely ignoring the little matter of police violence. And all of the rest of it.
I got into it with Lambert during Occupy because I wouldn’t put up with his bullshit “non-violence” schtick, and called it out every chance I got until he finally banned me. Tough. It’s schtick and it’s bullshit, and as Ta-Nehisi puts it in this piece, it’s a con. It is meant to preserve the power of the powerful and to maintain the status quo.
The trashing of Cornell West is pretty obviously an effort by some of the black elite to maintain their status by pleasing massa. It’s almost like they have to do it or something dreadful will happen to them, they’ll get cooties ick, ick. Has Oprah denounced Brother Cornell yet? Well, she will if she hasn’t. Guaranteed.
So I was pleased to see that Ta-Nehisi came out strong against the “non-violence” crap — as have a lot of elite and would be elite black writers and thinkers. They see clearly now that those who are calling most often and most shrilly for blacks to be “non-violent” are the ones who pervert the meaning of Martin Luther King’s legacy, and want most sincerely to maintain their status and the status quo that is killing so many individuals and destroying communities. Some few are willing to risk their status it seems. Good.
Because he is speaking to an audience who largely consider themselves to be among the favored, his message — that these calls for black “non-violence” are mostly bullshit — will resonate.
Simon stuck his foot up his own ass — wittingly or not, I don’t know — by issuing his own call for black “non-violence” in Baltimore while conveniently ignoring the legacy of police violence that has long protected him and his white privilege while destroying so much and so many around him.
He certainly got defensive about the criticism he’s received…
i ballasted nonviolence during OWS days partially for the optics of it. but when i discovered how many windows were smashed, etc. by agent provocateurs, then read Old Sourpuss’s ‘the cancer in occupy’ bullshit, i rethought it. otoh, i remember, as well, that in oakland, often actions (like Move-in day) were organized by the university elites, who then stayed well back from the ensuing frays. pffffft. i also believe that conversations about which actions were planned with ‘diversity of tactics’ allowed more people to show up to commit civil disobedience than would have otherwise. but then, that’s just how i remember things, not neccessarily what was so.
yes, many opinion-makers have come to calling out the grotesque hypocrisy of ‘nonviolence’ in the face of breathtaking and maybe even epic, police violence, but how tragic that so many believe that violence against ‘property’ is a more serious offense, eh? or as at the protests at the maul of america, violence against ‘capitalist shopping profits’, thus the huge fines that were levied.
Joseph Kent is a Baltimore activist who was snatched last night by police as he harangued the skirmish line. Last I saw, he was still in custody though there was no acknowledgement of where — or even if they had him — from the authorities.
Meanwhile, I’ve paid zero attention to Mr. Obama’s utterances on the situation. Neither he nor most of the black power structure will address the issue of violent policing as the proximate cause of the uprisings. They dance all around it, and they come up with practically everything else under the sun that should be dealt with, but not the immediate issue of violent policing and killing. Oh no. That needs “more study.”
Bullshit.
Che Pasa,
Your commentary has been quite excellent and you’re to be congratulated, and I do.
Yesterday, I was reminded of the Denzel Washington movie of a few years back, and in which the 15-year old student closed this ‘debate’ within this movie titled, “The Great Debaters” and in which the student offered the salient choice: “Political Violence or Civil Disobedience?.” And from this perspective, our Elective and Appointed Officials are scrambling to attain their ‘face-saving” Status Quo, and Obama is included. Thus, this lip service in search of “street cred” among the Elites.
Jaango
Jaango,
I think the main fear among those elites is that the movements against violent policing will coalesce into an actual revolution. They scream about the “riots” but they refuse (in most cases) to yield to the demands of the people to “stop killing us.” The killing doesn’t stop, and violent policing gets worse.
Our Betters seem to think they can continue business as usual as long as they have the troops to suppress the people and keep them in fear. But more and more it’s the police, not the people, who are seen to be living in fear, in mortal terror, frightened to death of the possibility of… revenge… for what they have been getting away with for decades.
“Riots” are not revenge. But revenge could come at any time, and if it does…
———————–
Thanks for your kind words.
Hey, Wendy. Somewhere on this thread you mentioned you recognized the Heironymous Bosch image. Are you a fan?
oh, my, yes, not that i’m a student of his work, mind you. but surrealism intrigues me to no end, but peering into bosch’s psyche is fascinating, if hideous and a bit frightening. did the images come from his dreams/nightmares or psychotropic plants? his work predated dali’s by centuries, and dali is quite tame in comparison, isn’t he? i did have to look for the name of the portion of a painting in your avatar. i found “hell”, i believe. brrrrrr.
and are you a student of his, nomad? and i’m very glad that you’ve joined us here, by the way.