#justice for ahmaud arbery

[queenvlion]

[goodblacknews]

Apple Adds $25 Million to Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, Increasing Financial Commitment to over $200M since 2020

This week, Apple announced its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI), a long-term global effort to advance equity and expand opportunities for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous communities, has more than doubled its initial financial commitment to total more than $200 million over the last three years. Since launching REJI in June 2020, Apple has supported education, economic…

[streetartguy]

[whenweallvote]

Four years ago today, Ahmaud Arbery was chased and killed by three white men while jogging in a Georgia residential neighborhood.

Ahmaud’s killers were convicted of murder and federal hate crimes one year later after Georgia passed a hate crime bill with bipartisan support.

While this legislation was a step in the right direction, true justice would be Ahmaud still living today. His life mattered.

[ausetkmt]

Freedmen Seek Their Fair Share of Billions of Dollars in Federal Aid and Why We Should Care/Rise UP and Support Them

By Eli Grayson Eagle Guest Writer

Eli Grayson is a Creek Citizen and unabashed supporter of the Freedmen descendants of the 5 Civilized Tribes and the 1866 Reconstruction Treaties.

This past week, we celebrated our Nation’s 244th year of Independence with family and friends over BBQ and fireworks, we should all stop to reflect on its significance, particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

The protests that have swept the country by those outraged over the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many others, most of whose names have not garnered national attention, has sparked a long-overdue National dialogue about the treatment of Black Americans in the United States, a reckoning with this country’s past, the many vestiges of slavery that continue today, and what we as a country can and must do to address racism. [It also reminds ALL of us that we have a long way to go.]

Not only have the egregious deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery led to a growing chorus of voices calling for criminal justice reform, it has prompted many to reflect upon racism in both its subtle and overt forms today. It has prompted many to learn about events long celebrated by Black Americans such as Juneteenth (even the NFL recently recognized Juneteenth as an official holiday). And it has prompted many to consider what steps we as individuals, and as a society, can take to affirmatively address it. Here in Oklahoma, attention has focused on Black Wall Street and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Well known is the U.S. Government’s abhorrent treatment of Native Americans, which included abrogation of countless treaties, appropriation of land, and forced removal to Western territories, including what is today Oklahoma.

Less well known, however, is the fact that the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole Nations – collectively known today as the Five Civilized Tribes – enslaved Africans. Like Southern plantation owners, they bought and sold slaves and treated them as chattel property. Indeed, slaveholding was such an integral part of the daily life of these tribal nations that each entered treaties with the Confederate States of America in 1861 to ensure its continuance.

Many Americans recently learned for the first time about the meaning and significance of Juneteenth, when nearly all remaining slaves in the United States and its territories were freed – a full 71 days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 to Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant.

Enslaved Africans of Indian Territory

This was not the case for the enslaved Africans of Indian Territory. Even after Lee’s surrender, and even after General Granger read his Orders, the enslaved Africans of Indian Territory were kept in bondage.

Sadly, it was not until the Five Tribes of Indian Territory entered Treaties with the U.S. Government on March 21, with the Seminole Nation, on April 28, with the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, on June 14, with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and on July 19, with the Cherokee Nation in 1866 – more than a year after Lee’s surrender – were these slaves granted freedom, tribal citizenship, and equal interest in the soil and national funds.

Each of these treaties (collectively known as the Treaties of 1866) contained provisions freeing the slaves and an express acknowledgement that the U.S. Constitution was, and shall remain, the Supreme Law of the land. Notably, there was no mention of tribal law or sovereignty insulating these slave holding tribes from full compliance with the U.S. Constitution, which includes all the Civil War reconstruction amendments.

Today, we find ourselves at a turning point in society. Similar to the country as a whole, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations must take this seminal moment to carefully examine their slaveholding past, their prior allegiance with the Confederacy, enshrined through Treaties entered in 1861, and how they can make amends by fully adhering to both the letter and spirit of the 1866 Reconstruction Peace Treaties.

Congressional legislation

The three House bills are H.R. 2, the Invest in America Act, which includes $1 billion for the Native American Housing Block Grant Program to create or rehabilitate over 8,000 affordable homes for Native Americans on tribal lands; H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, which includes $6 billion for housing and community development to respond to the Coronavirus; and H.R. 5319, the Native American Housing and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act (NAHASDA), which would authorize $680 million in grants to tribes in the first year and grow to $824 million in the fifth and final year.

Why is this important and why should you care? NAHASDA was originally passed by Congress in 1996 to address poor housing conditions in Indian country and last re-authorized in 2008. It is a flagship Federal law for Native American tribes and the vehicle through which approximately $650 million flows annually to the tribes. In Oklahoma, the Five Civilized Tribes receive more than $62 million annually in direct grants for housing and community development projects. These grants are based on a formula that takes into account various factors including the number of tribal members. Notably, these grants are supported by taxpayers.

For the 2021 Fiscal Year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is responsible for administering NAHASDA, has informed the Five Civilized Tribes that they can expect to receive $62,223,462. Thus, nearly 10 percent of all NAHASDA grant funds will go to just these five tribes. By any measure, this is a significant sum, particularly when you consider that there are approximately 573 federally recognized tribes in the United States today, according to data from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. And, the final amount will be even greater as Congress has (appropriately) increased the amount of funds for NAHASDA far above the amounts requested by this Administration, including an appropriation of $825 million for this Fiscal Year.

Oklahoma Tribes receive millions in housing aid

Native American Tribes also receive other competitively awarded grants from HUD through a program known as the Indian Community Development Block Grant program. The Choctaw Nation was recently awarded $900,000 to rehabilitate 60 single-family homes while the Cherokee Nation received the same sum to construct a community building, which will house the Early Head Start program. The Chickasaw Nation was awarded $900,000 to construct a youth center in Ardmore, Oklahoma that will provide a safe and clean place for activities and services for Chickasaw tribal youth while the Muscogee (Creek) Nation will use its $900,000 award to construct a facility on the campus of the College of Muscogee Nation. The facility will include space for exhibitions and a lecture hall. These are worthy projects and it is vital that all those in need, including Freedmen descendants, can benefit.

Why Freedmen are concerned

Now if you have read this far, you must be thinking this is great news for these five tribes. And indeed, it is. However, for the Freedmen who are de facto members of the tribe, they may never see a dime of these funds if history is any guide.

Steps such as conditioning or denying the issuance of Citizenship Cards to Freedmen descendants, as well the disenrollment of Freedmen as tribal citizens, is what first led Congress in 2008 to include language in the NAHASDA re-authorization bill to link the receipt of NAHASDA housing grants to compliance with the treaty rights and benefits conferred on the Freedmen through the 1866 treaties.

That is why the efforts of House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-California, to fight on behalf of the Freedmen of all Five Civilized Tribes is so vital.

The committee she chairs oversees HUD and is responsible for periodically re-authorizing NAHASDA. A bi-partisan bill introduced in Congress last December would re-authorize NAHASDA. However, unlike the 2008 legislation, which contained language to prevent the Cherokee Nation from denying Cherokee Freedmen under the Act, the bill introduced by Rep. Denny Heck and co-sponsored by Reps. Scott Tipton (R-Colorado), Ben Ray Lujan (D-New Mexico), Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), Deb Haaland (D- New Mexico), Don Young (R-Arkansas), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisconsin), and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), does not contain any protections for the Cherokee Freedmen nor the Freedmen of the other Civilized Tribes. Similarly, the version introduced in the Senate last week is devoid of such protections for the Freedmen.

Disturbed by the pattern of denying benefits to Freedmen, Chairwoman Waters is seeking assurance that descendants of Freedmen are not denied NAHASDA funds received by the Tribes. The Descendants of the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes have been working to include language that would ensure that the Freedmen of all Five Civilized Tribes receive taxpayer funded NAHASDA benefits. A similar effort advanced by former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank was successful and helped to ensure that Cherokee Freedmen received NAHASDA benefits. And in case, any question whether such protections were needed, one look only to the fact that HUD held up NAHASDA funds to the Cherokee Nation for noncompliance.

Native Americans keep fight against Freedmen

Given the harsh treatment of Native Americans at the hands of whites, one naturally would expect these Five Tribes and their supporters and defenders to be more sensitive to the plight of Freedmen who today make up more than 200,000 descendants.

The reality has been quite the opposite.

Despite knowing all this, tribal leaders and their supporters and defenders continue to maintain that such language is not needed and further argue that such language infringes upon the sovereign rights of ALL Native American tribes.

Both arguments could not be further from the truth.

Language ensuring that the Freedmen have access to federal housing benefits is urgently needed for the very reason that Freedmen have routinely been denied NAHASDA benefits for years. And let’s be clear – language we are seeking does not apply to ALL tribes, but rather only to the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes.

And it does not stop at NAHASDA benefits. Freedmen have been denied tribal citizenship, benefits, and the right to vote as well. Regarding sovereignty, these are federal taxpayer dollars – as such, the federal government and, by extension, its American citizens, have a vested interest in ensuring that all tribal members, including Freedmen, benefit from the funds appropriated pursuant to NAHASDA.

If tribes feel so strongly about their sovereign right to continue to discriminate against Freedmen through denial of federally funded benefits, they can opt to refuse the funding, which would then be redistributed to other tribes. Indeed, it is the height of hypocrisy for any of the Five Civilized Tribes or their supporters to makes these arguments as they count the Freedmen when it comes to the allocation of federal housing grants from HUD yet turn around and deny those very same Freedmen from receiving such benefits.

Freedmen are equal, lawful Tribal citizens

And don’t be mistaken. While Freedmen should be treated as equal citizens under the respective 1866 Treaties, the language we are seeking to include in each of these three bills carefully avoids this ensuring Freedmen receive taxpayer housing and community development benefits on the same terms and conditions as their Native American sisters and brothers.

Indeed, in many instances, these truly are their sisters and brothers given the extensive intermixing of Freedmen and By Blood tribal members over the years. Ironically, this has resulted in some members of a family being considered by the Five Tribes as Indian and therefore citizens of the Tribe while other family members being considered by the tribe as non-Indian and therefore like black sheep.

Yet every time we make a further legislative concession and are led to believe that we are close to a final agreement on language, the Tribes and their supporters and defenders move the goalposts. Sound familiar? Yes, a sensitive issue. The Freedmen only seek to ensure that the Five Civilized Tribes comply with the Treaties of 1866.

Tribal Nations’ actions throw shade on BLM

Lastly, the Five Civilized tribes cannot have it both ways. They cannot on the one hand claim they are victims of discrimination and participate in BLM rallies yet discriminate against Freedmen by denying them suffrage and other rights of tribal citizenship under the guise of sovereignty.

And we are under no illusion that fighting this battle for justice and equality will not remain a challenge. The Five Civilized Tribes have wielded their extensive influence amongst the Nation’s 573 tribes to frame the debate and shape the position of the National tribal organizations in Washington, whom the Members of Congress look to when writing laws that affect the tribes. Adding to the challenge is the fact that the Five Civilized tribes have deployed their sizable resources to contribute to key Members of Congress with the dual purpose of keeping Americans in the dark about their slaveholding past and ensuring that these legal protections for Freedmen never see the light of day in Congress.

But just like our Nation, it is time for the Five Civilized Tribes to stand up and confront their past by taking immediate and affirmative steps to ensure that all descendants of Freedmen receive the federal housing benefits.

This they can do by supporting legislation being courageously advanced by Chairwoman Waters that would require the Five Civilized Tribes to both comply with their Treaty obligations of ensuring access to benefits for Freedmen and report on their compliance to Congress.

Featured Image (Top), Buck C. Franklin, Nashville, Tennessee, 1899, Calvert Brothers Studio Glass Plate Negatives Collection, The Tennessee State Library and Archives Blog

[crimethinc]

Three years have passed since Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd. While politicians encouraged protesters to seek redress through the "justice" system, nothing could bring back his life, nor the lives of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, or any of the other people murdered by police in a structurally racist system.

The conviction of the officers who murdered George Floyd was an exceptional case aimed chiefly at pacifying an outraged population. Over the past three years, police have continued to murder Black and Brown people at the same pace.

What will it take to stop the police from killing?

https://crimethinc.com/endpolice

This is the question we must all ask today.

[ptseti]

THEY MUST NOT DIE: STORY OF SCOTTSBORO

On March 25th, 1931, nine Black boys in Alabama, USA were falsely charged with r*ping a White woman. They would then be sentenced to death. Labelled a legal case of lynching, this case, known as the Scottsboro Boys case, blew up across the country and the world as a major part of the early Civil Rights Struggle.

The Scottsboro Boys case was a pivotal moment in Black history in the United States that had rippling effects that would impact generations to come. The international struggle to free the Scottsboro Boys led to the largest resistance movement against racism in the US justice system in history. The international impact of the Scottsboro case was so far reaching that a Sedition Bill was passed in Ghana (then the British colony of the Gold Coast) to prevent Africans from agitating in support of the Scottsboro Boys.

While the case did officially bring about certain legal reforms to the carceral system, such as mandating the presence of Black jurors in cases with Black defendants, this would often go unenforced throughout the 20th century and into the present. In one example, Black revolutionary Assata Shakur would go on to be sentenced to life in prison by an all-White jury. In 1986, a court ruled that race could not be used as a factor in the initial establishment of a jury pool. In 2021, there were two high-profile cases in which nearly all-White juries acquitted White men for shooting and killing Black men - the murders of Jake Blake and Ahmaud Arbery.

Africans in the United States and throughout the diaspora continue to struggle against a racist criminal justice system in which they are disproportionally incarcerated.

BlackBoys #Alabama #USA #False #Charge #WhiteWoman

[nerdygaymormon]

What do you think of the song 'Try That in a Small Town' by Jason Aldean?

Jason Aldean's song says if you try those "big city" things out here in small towns, there's gonna be swift justice delivered by the local populace. He means this as a good thing and at first the song sounds like it's about being anti-crime, but soon it moves to vigilante justice, which is a terrifying prospect for minority populations.

Yesterday a national monument to Emmett Till was dedicated. Fourteen-year-old Emmett was abducted, beaten, and lynched after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in small town Mississippi.

Emmett Till is far from the only one who met a violent death at the hands of small-town justice: Matthew Shepherd, Brandon Teena, Medgar Evers, James Byrd, Ahmaud Arbery, and the list goes on

————————————————————-

Small towns have a strong sense of community and togetherness, you can also find this in big cities. Big cities have people of color, allies, and queer folks, and so do small towns. Illegal drugs, domestic violence, and people being harassed and attacked for being "different" happens in both the big city and the small town. Good people live in small towns and in the big city. Urban and rural areas are in a symbiotic relationship, we need each other.

I view this song as yet one more way of saying we're a divided nation and need to view each other with suspicion. I believe we can celebrate the good people where we live without running down folks from other places. We don't have to view people who live in places different from us as enemies who have to be treated harshly.

[sirfrancisvarney]

I had been enjoying this season of True Detective so much, and I was so looking forward to the last episode and seeing how they'd wrap things up, but when it finally aired, I was left feeling so disappointed.

The explanation given of what Tsalal was up to in the beginning made absolutely no sense, to the point where I was willing to believe it was a cover story for something else. Unfortunately, the nonsense about whatever they were drilling being too hard to extract DNA from is apparently true, somehow. I don't understand it. We've been drilling into glaciers and permafrost for decades. Why would the core being too "hard" make it too difficult to extract DNA? We're talking about ice; why can't you just thaw it? Are you trying to get DNA out of literal rock, like fossilized bacteria or something? Shearing DNA is the least of your problems. And what sort of pollution is going to make your cores "softer" without destroying or contaminating your samples? Am I really supposed to believe that's the best method available?

Look, on some level, what the Tsalal scientists were doing isn't actually important, because as far as the narrative is concerned, it's just a MacGuffin, just something to get them there and give them a reason to kill Annie K. and kickstart the plot. On the other hand, what they were doing is the most important thing, because it serves as their motivation, and if I can't believe the first crime, the whole plot falls apart. For the story to succeed, I have to believe that they would all kill Annie K. over her attempted destruction of their work. And since the scientists aren't given much in the way of characterization (like at this point I still don't know if they were all completely off their rocker or if Clark was right and they did find what they were looking for), then their research has to be something I would recognize as being worth killing over. But their research makes no sense, so I don't. And this killed the story for me. 

In the companion podcast Issa López talked about listening to indigenous women and getting their input when developing the story, and I've seen people online comment on the show accurately portraying life in Alaska. I just wish the science side of things had received the same level of attention.

On a more personal and subjective note, the ending was also too happy for me. There was a time when I liked tales of badass women getting revenge on evil men as much as anyone, but those stories feel like empty wish-fulfillment nowadays. I can't believe in those kinds of endings anymore, because they only seem to exist in fiction. Was a single video from a dead man who was well-known to be mentally ill really all it took to bring down the mine? In 2020, there were video recordings of both Ahmaud Arbery's and George Floyd's murders everywhere on the internet, protests in every state in the US, people getting their eyes shot out or receiving permanent brain damage from cops shooting them in the face, and for what? After all that, as soon as 2021 rolled around, the newspapers were platforming all these bullshit liars claiming crime was now worse than it was back in the 80s.

I don't know, maybe I'm just too cynical, but I don't believe justice or change can be made so easily or quickly, and it irritates me sometimes to see it presented that way in fiction. Maybe if the Tsalal research had made more sense, I wouldn't have been as bothered by the rest.

[beardedmrbean]

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Three years after a former Georgia district attorney was indicted on charges alleging she interfered with police investigating the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the case's slow progression through the court system has sputtered to a halt, one the presiding judge insists is temporary.

Jackie Johnson was the state's top prosecutor for coastal Glynn County in February 2020, when Arbery was chased by three white men in pickup trucks who had spotted him running in their neighborhood. The 25-year-old Black man died in the street after one of his pursuers shot him with a shotgun.

Johnson transferred the case to an outside prosecutor because the man who initiated the deadly chase, Greg McMichael, was her former employee. But Georgia's attorney general says she illegally used her office to try to protect the retired investigator and his son, Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots.

Both McMichaels already have been convicted and sentenced to prison in back-to-back trials for murder and federal hate crimes. So has a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, whose cellphone video of the shooting triggered a national outcry over Arbery’s death. A court heard their first appeals six months ago.

The criminal misconduct case against Johnson has moved at a comparative crawl since a grand jury indicted her on Sept. 2, 2021, on a felony count of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of hindering a police officer.

While the men responsible for Arbery's death are serving life sentences, the slain man's family has insisted that justice won’t be complete until Johnson stands trial.

“It’s very, very important,” said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery's mother. “Jackie Johnson was really part of the problem early on.”

Johnson has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. After losing reelection in 2020, she told The Associated Press that she immediately recused herself in the handling of Arbery's killing because of Greg McMichael's involvement.

Johnson's case has stalled as one of her attorneys, Brian Steel, has spent most of the past two years in an Atlanta courtroom defending Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug against racketeering and gang charges. Jury selection in the case took 10 months, prosecutors began presenting evidence last November and they are still calling witnesses.

Senior Judge John R. Turner, who was assigned to Johnson’s case, insists there is nothing he can do but wait.

“If anyone’s concerned that the case is being shuffled under the rug, I can guarantee you it’s not,” Turner told the AP in a phone interview. “It’s moving at a snail’s pace, but it will move forward eventually.”

After Arbery was killed, Greg McMichael told police that he and his son had armed themselves and chased the Black man, suspecting he was a fleeing criminal. Bryan, who didn't know any of the men, made a similar assumption after seeing them pass his home and joined in his own truck.

The indictment against Johnson alleges she told police they shouldn't arrest Travis McMichael. It also accuses her of “showing favor and affection” to Greg McMichael by calling on George Barnhill, a district attorney in a neighboring judicial circuit, to advise police about how to handle the shooting.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Barnhill four days later to take over as outside prosecutor. Carr has said he picked Barnhill without knowing he already had advised police that he saw no grounds for arrests in Arbery's death.

Barnhill stepped aside after a few weeks, but not before he sent a letter to police captain arguing the McMichaels acted legally and Arbery was killed in self-defense.

After Johnson was charged, she reported to jail for booking and was released without having to post bond. Her attorneys waived a formal reading of the charges before a judge and she has yet to appear in court. The judge denied legal motions by Johnson’s lawyers to dismiss the case last November. Court records show no further developments over the past 10 months.

“Securing an indictment is just one step in our ongoing pursuit of justice for Ahmaud Arbery and his family," Carr said in a statement. "We have never stopped fighting for them, and we look forward to the opportunity to present our case in court.”

Johnson's attorneys, Steel and John Ossick, did not respond to emails and a phone message seeking comment. They have argued in court filings there is “not a scintilla of evidence” that she hindered police.

Prosecutors responded with a court filing that listed 16 calls between phones belonging to Johnson and Greg McMichael in the weeks following the shooting.

Two legal experts who aren't involved in the case said there is no deadline for Johnson to stand trial. She hasn't been jailed, so there is little pressure to expedite her case.

Steel's prolonged absence because of the Atlanta gang trial likely isn't the only factor slowing the case, Atlanta defense attorney Don Samuel said.

Courts remain saddled with a backlog of cases since the COVID-19 lockdowns, he said. And the attorney general's office has a limited staff of criminal prosecutors with their own busy caseloads.

Samuel also questioned whether prosecutors have a strong case against Johnson. Even if she opposed charging the McMichaels in Arbery's death, he said, prosecutors haven't accused her of taking bribes or similar blatant corruption.

District attorneys “have a huge amount of discretion to make decisions about what cases to pursue,” Samuel said. “The notion that we’re going to start prosecuting DAs for prosecuting or not prosecuting strikes me as really being on the edge of propriety.”

Danny Porter, the former district attorney for Gwinnett County in metro Atlanta, said prosecutors like Johnson have a legitimate role in advising police on whether or not to arrest suspects before an investigation is complete.

As for Johnson's recommendation in 2020 that the attorney general replace her with another prosecutor who concluded Arbery's killing was justified, Porter said: “I don’t think that’s a violation of the law, though it might have made them mad.”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

BY BREE NEWSOME BASS

BLACK COPS DON’T MAKE POLICING ANY LESS ANTI-BLACK

The idea that we can resolve racism by integrating a fundamentally anti-Black institution in the U.S. is the most absurd notion of all

This article is part of Abolition for the People, a series brought to you by a partnership between Kaepernick Publishing and LEVEL, a Medium publication for and about the lives of Black and Brown men. The series, which comprises 30 essays and conversations over four weeks, points to the crucial conclusion that policing and prisons are not solutions for the issues and people the state deems social problems — and calls for a future that puts justice and the needs of the community first.

Amid recent growing calls for defunding police this summer, a set of billboards appeared in Dallas, Atlanta, and New York City. Each had the words “No Police, No Peace” printed in large, bold letters next to an image of a Black police officer. Funded by a conservative right-wing think tank, the billboards captured all the hallmarks of modern pro-policing propaganda. The jarring choice of language, a deliberate corruption of the protest chant “no justice, no peace,” follows a pattern we see frequently from proponents of the police state. Any word or phrase made popular by the modern movement is quickly co-opted and repurposed until it’s rendered virtually meaningless. But perhaps the most insidious aspect of modern pro-police propaganda is reflected in the choice to make the officer on the billboard the face of a Black man.

This is in keeping with a narrative pro-police advocates seek to push on a regular basis in mass media — that policing can’t be racist when there are Black officers on the force, and that the police force itself is an integral part of Black communities. When Freddie Gray died in police custody, police defenders quickly pointed out that three of the officers involved were Black, implying that racism couldn’t be a factor in a case where the offending officers were the same race as the victim.

When I scaled the flagpole at South Carolina’s capital in 2015 and lowered the Confederate flag, many noted that it was a Black officer who was tasked with raising the flag to the top of its pole again. When an incident of brutality brings a city to its brink, Black police chiefs are paraded to podiums and cameras to serve as the face of the United States’ racist police state and to symbolically restore a sense of order. One of the most frequent recommendations from police reformists is to recruit and promote more Black officers. This is based on an argument that the primary problem with policing centers on a “breakdown of trust” between police forces and communities they have terrorized for decades; the solution, then, is to “restore trust” between the two parties by recruiting officers who resemble the communities they police. Images of police officers dancing or playing basketball with Black children in economically deprived neighborhoods are often published as local news items to help drive this narrative home. The idea gained traction in the aftermath of numerous urban rebellions in the 1960s and has seen a resurgence in the wake of the 2014 Ferguson uprising.

When protests broke out in Atlanta this past summer in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, the city’s Black mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, held a press conference flanked by some of Atlanta’s most famous and wealthy Black residents. Together they pleaded for protestors to go home and leave property alone. Soon after, Rayshard Brooks was killed by white police officers in Atlanta. The moment exposed a class divide that exists in cities all over the nation: A chasm between the image of Black affluence promoted by Black politicians and the Black petite bourgeoisie (middle class) and the lived realities of the majority of Black residents in those cities, many of whom still face disproportionate unemployment, displacement by rapid gentrification, and policies that cater to white corporate interests. If the solution to racism were simply a matter of a few select Black people gaining entry to anti-Black institutions, we would see different outcomes than what we’re witnessing now. But the idea that we can resolve racism by integrating what is perhaps the most fundamentally anti-Black institution in the U.S. — its policing and prison industry — is the most absurd notion of all.

Part of the reason why calls to defund police have sent such shock waves through the nation, prompting placement of pro-police billboards and pushback from figures of the Black establishment, is because it cuts right to the heart of how structural racism operates in the United States. At a time when the Black elite would prefer to measure progress by their own tokenized positions of power and symbolic gestures like murals, the push to defund police would require direct confrontation with how the white supremacist system has been organized since the end of chattel slavery — when the prisons replaced plantations as the primary tool of racial control. Actions that may have been widely seen as adequate responses to injustice just a couple of decades ago now ring hollow to many observers who see that Black people continue to be killed by a system that remains largely unchanged.

Police forces represent some of the oldest white fraternal organizations in the United States. The rules of who is empowered to police and who is subject to policing are fundamental to the organization of the racial caste system. Even in the earliest days of integrating police forces, Black officers were often told they couldn’t arrest white people. The integration of police forces does nothing to alter their basic function as the primary enforcers of structural racism on a daily basis, and the presence of Black officers only serves as an attempt to mask this fact.

Police forces in America began as slave patrols, and their primary function has always been to act in service of the white ownership class and its capitalist production. In one century, that meant policing and controlling enslaved Black people, with the purview to use violence against free Black people as well; in another, it involved cracking down on organized labor, for the benefit of white capitalists. Receiving a badge and joining the force has been an entryway to white manhood for many European immigrants — providing them a sense of citizenship and superiority when they would have traditionally been part of the peasantry rather than the white owner class.

That spirit of white fraternity remains deeply entrenched in the culture of policing and its unions today, regardless of this new wave of Black police chiefs and media spokespeople. Police forces became unionized around the same time various other public employees sought collective bargaining rights — however, under capitalism, their role as maintainers of race-property relations remains the same. The most fundamental rule of race established under chattel slavery was that Black people were the equivalent of white property (if not counted as less than property). This relationship between race and property is most overt during periods of open rebellion against the police state, where officers are deployed to use lethal force in the interest of protecting inanimate property. We see swifter and harsher punishments handed out to those who vandalize police cars than to police who assault and kill Black people. (This is a major reason why the press conference in Atlanta with T.I. and Killer Mike struck people as classist and out of touch with the majority Black experience.)

This same pattern extends throughout the carceral state. Roughly a quarter of all bailiffs, correctional officers, and jailers are Black, yet there’s no indication that diversifying the staff of a racist institution results in less violence and death for those who are held within it. That’s because the institution continues to operate as designed. It is not “broken,” as reformists are fond of saying. The fallacy is in believing the function of police and prisons is to mete out punishment and justice in an equitable manner and not to first and foremost serve as a means of maintaining the race, gender, and class hierarchy of an oppressive society.

Believing that the system is “broken” rather than functioning exactly as intended requires a certain adherence to white supremacist and anti-Black beliefs. One has to ignore the rampant amount of violence, fraud, and theft being committed by some of the most powerful figures in society with little to no legal consequence while massive amounts of resources are devoted to the hyper-policing of the poor for infractions as minor as trespassing, shoplifting, and turnstile jumping at subway stations.

The Trump era has provided some of the starkest examples of this dynamic. The most powerful person in the nation and his associates have been able to break the law and violate the Constitution — including documented crimes against humanity — in full view of the public while he proclaims himself the upholder of law and order. Wealthy celebrities involved in the college admissions bribery scandal have gotten away with a slap on the wrist for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar scheme while a dozen NYPD officers surrounded a Black teenager, guns drawn, for the “crime” of failing to pay $2.75 for a subway ride.

The propaganda that depicts this type of policing as being essential to public safety and order is fundamentally classist and anti-Black. It traces its roots to the Black Codes that were passed immediately after the Civil War to control the movements of newly freed Black people. It relies on the racist assumption that Black people would run amok and pose a threat to the larger society if not kept under the constant surveillance of a police force that has authority to kill them if deemed necessary, and with virtual impunity. That’s why we are inundated with a narrative that depicts the police officer who regularly patrols predominantly Black communities as being an essential part of maintaining order in society.

One of the primary talking points against calls to defund and abolish police is that Black communities would have no way to maintain peace and order, and that a state of chaos would ensue. In wealthier neighborhoods, if an officer is present at all, they’re most likely positioned by a gate at the top of the neighborhood to monitor who enters. Meanwhile, the officer assigned to the predominantly Black community is there to keep a watchful eye on the residents themselves, and to ensure they are contained in their designated place within the larger city or town.

The current political divide on this issue falls exactly along these lines, separating those who think the system is simply in need of reform and those who correctly define the problem as the system itself. The reality is that Black people fall on both sides of this divide, which is why we find so many Black officers in uniform arguing for a reformist agenda even as every reform they propose is vociferously opposed by the powerful, majority-white police unions and most of the rank and file. Reformists remain committed to preserving the existing system even though the idea of reforming it to be the opposite of what it was designed to be is an unproven theory that’s no more realistic than the idea of abolishing police altogether.

The most pressing question remains: Why are we seeking to integrate and reform modern manifestations of the slave patrols and plantations in the first place? In Mississippi and Louisiana, state penitentiaries are converted plantations. What is a reformed plantation — and what is its purpose?

We must remember that many of these so-called “reforms” are not new. For as long as the plantation and chattel slavery systems existed, there also existed Black slaveowners, Black overseers, and Black slave catchers who participated in and profited from the daily operations of white supremacy. The presence of these few Black people in elevated positions of power did nothing to change the material conditions of the millions of enslaved people back then. And it makes no greater amount of sense to believe they indicate a shift in material conditions for Black people now.

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

Who was Emmet Till?

I wanted to post this because Carolyn Bryant Donham just died, and people will be seeing Emmett's name in the news. While I hope most people know his story, I know not everyone does. I remember in college the professor mentioning his story as a topic people could write an essay on, and two other students, both at least 10 years older than I, not knowing who he was.

Emmett was a 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago. In 1955, he was visiting relatives in Mississippi. He and some friends were in a grocery store.

The owner's wife, a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, alleged that he grabbed her by the waist and propositioned her. Some people say he merely wolf-whistled at her. And other say absolutely nothing happened.

Four days later, Carolyn's husband, Roy Bryant, and his brother, John Milam, drove to Emmett's relatives house and kidnapped him. They beat and mutilated him before shooting him and throwing Emmett's body in the river.

When his relatives notified his mother Emmett was missing, Bryant and Milam were questioned by police and admitted to the kidnapping...but said they had let Emmett go.

When Emmett's body was found days later, the men were put on trial for murder. Decades later, an arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant would be found, but it was never served. The all-white male jury deliberated only a little over hour, and they admitted it only took that long because they stopped for a drink at one point. They voted to aquit both men of murder. A separate jury later voted to aquit them of kidnapping.

Jurors would later admit they believed the men to be guilty, but did not think they should be punished.

After the trial, Roy Bryant and John Milam sold their confession for $4k to a newspaper. That was a huge amount of money back then.

There was never any justice done for Emmett. They lived the rest of their lives without serving a day in jail for his murder.

In 2008, Carolyn Bryant allegedly told a writer that she had lied on the stand about what had happened. This was not caught on tape, and she later denied it happened....but I mean...multiple witnesses have said either that nothing happened or that all Emmett did was whistle. I'm inclined to believe she was a lying cunt who made it all up.

Now, Carolyn Bryant is dead, may she burn in hell.

But it's important that no one ever forget Emmett Till. You see, it's not just that he was murdered, suffering what no child should ever need to go through. But these things are still happening today.

James Craig Anderson. Trayvon Martin. Tamir Rice. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd. Elijah Mcclain.

And recently, Ralph Yarl could have very easily died.

We've come along way. Some of the murderers get convicted now. But what happened to Emmett Till could all too easily happen again.

[venusstadt]

Black Women And Black LGBTQ+ Lives Matter, Too.

(DISCLAIMER: This article was originally published 6/12/20 on Medium.com, prior to the creation of venustadt.com. As such, my opinions may or may not have altered since the text below was originally written. This article has been re-published here to track my growth as a writer.)

George Floyd was murdered May 25 in Minneapolis. His murderers were Tou Thao, who jeered at concerned bystanders; Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Keung, who helped restrain him, though he was already in handcuffs; and Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, despite Floyd’s pleas for breath.

Since then, unprecedented protests have emerged in all 50 states and even places as far as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and France. Protestors of all races, religions, and ages experiencing police brutality firsthand, being exposed to teargas and losing eyes to rubber bullets. Online, people are signing petitions, circulating and donating to bail funds, and calling on brands and influencers to use their platform to speak up about black lives. And, though it may be too early to tell, we may be on the verge of revolutionary change: statues and other symbols of white supremacy and oppression are being destroyed all over the world, and with calls to defund the police, the concept of police abolition is entering the public sphere. Minneapolis City Council announced their plan to vote on disbanding their police force June 9. 

While some less astute observers may think that George Floyd’s death was the sole catalyst for these fervent protests, it was, in reality, the final straw. Just weeks prior, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery by Gregory and Travis McMichael drew national attention when the video of Arbery’s death went viral, drawing comparisons to Trayvon Martin’s 2012 death. Floyd himself joins a long list of black men and boys murdered by law enforcement, such as Philando Castile, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, who also died of asphyxiation in 2014. These names, and many more, have been rightfully plastered on posters and chanted at protests. 

Other names, however, aren’t drawing enough attention. Officers killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her home on March 13. Though her death has led to Louisville’s banning of no-knock warrants, no arrests have been made, leading many to feel as if her case has taken a backseat to other police brutality victims. Likewise, the name of Tony McDade, a black trans man killed by police just two days after George Floyd, has so far been left out of wider media coverage. 

Though black women and girls are statistically killed less by law enforcement than black men--2.4 to 5.4 in 100,000 versus 1 in 1,000 for the latter, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--it is still important for those killed by police to receive justice. Consider the deaths of Sandra Bland and Aiyana Jones, or the gender- and race-based sexual violence perpetrated against the 13 victims of former officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who, according to Buzzfeed News, “deliberately chose women he thought were unlikely to be believed -- black women with criminal records from an impoverished neighborhood.” 

Unfortunately, there seem to be no specific statistics addressing interactions between black LGBTQ persons and law enforcement. However, it is worth noting that the 1969 Stonewall riots, often dubbed the first Pride, came about due to months of police violence against the LGBTQ community, culminating in the police raid of Stonewall Inn. A year later, similar protests broke out in LA after the death of black trans sex worker Laverne Turner. With the intersecting identities of blackness and queerness, it’s not a stretch to believe that black LGBTQ persons face unique challenges when it comes to police violence and navigating the judicial system. 

It’s intersecting identities like these -- blackness and girlhood/womanhood, blackness and queerness, sometimes all three -- that explain why violence against black women and black LGBTQ persons is often overlooked. These two groups are a minority within a minority, and the black community, like any community, has a long way to go in terms of misogyny and homophobia/transphobia (see the reactions to Gayle King’s Lisa Leslie interview or Zaya Wade coming out as trans). 

Recently, amid the George Floyd protests, black trans woman Iyanna Dior was verbally and physically assaulted by around 30 cis black men (and some cis black women) in a Minnesota convenience store. Around the same time, black women on Twitter held honest discussions about rape and childhood sexual assault, only to be met with backlash and crude jokes. One user even accused the women of trying to divide black people during a critical time. 

There lies another tissue. Black LGBTQ persons and black women are often forced to choose between their identities, even though these identities often combine to create a unique experience of oppression. Look no further than the recent insistence that black gay people are “black before they are gay,” or, as stated previously, the accusation that black women discussing their assault divides the race.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t focus on the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and other black men who have been made victims of police brutality. In a world where many more victims are silenced due to the lack of video evidence, we must amplify Floyd and Arbery’s stories so that they may receive justice. But as we fight for black men and boys, we must also remember the Breonna Taylors, the Tony McDades and victims of intracommunity violence like Iyanna Dior to reach the ultimate goal of black liberation. 

All lives don’t matter until black lives matter. Likewise, black lives won’t matter until all black lives -- black women’s lives, black trans lives, black gay lives -- matter as well.

[90363462]

JUSTICE DELAYED: White father and son reach the find out phase of attempted lynching of Black delivery driver

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JUSTICE DELAYED: White father and son reach the find out phase of attempted lynching of Black delivery driver

Ty Ross

News journalist for Occupy Democrats.

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The White father and son who reportedly chased and shot at a Black FedEx delivery driver have been indicted. A Mississippi grand jury indicted the racist pair on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and shooting into a motor vehicle.

On January 24th, Gregory Chase and his son Brandon allegedly pursued FedEx delivery driver D’Monterrio Gibson after he dropped off a package in Brookhaven, Mississippi – located about an hour outside of the state’s capital city.

According to Gibson, he believes he was targeted for being Black by people who thought that he “didn’t belong” in the neighborhood.

Mind you, Brookhaven is a pretty diverse city, with approximately 59% of its residents being Black.

Wearing a FedEx uniform, Gibson said he was working from a Hertz rental van that the package delivery giant rented – not an unusual circumstance.

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NBC News reported:

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The incident has been compared to the hunting down and killing of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arberyin February 2020.

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Arbery was out jogging in a Georgia neighborhood when he was chased and fatally shot by father and son, Travis and Greg McMichael. The pair were convicted on federal hate crime charges in August of this year – along with their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed the heinous murder.

The McMichaels both received life sentences, while Bryan was sentenced to 35 years.

Released after posting $500,000 bonds each earlier this year, both Greg Case and his son were arrested by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department – the father for conspiracy, and his son Brandon for “suspicion of aggravated assault.”

Those charges have since been elevated to include the attempt on Mr. Gibson’s life.

In a police report filed the day after the incident, Gibson said he swerved to avoid the men as multiple shots were fired into the van.  Damaging the vehicle and the packages inside, even as Gibron drove onto the grass to avoid hitting the son.

He immediately told his manager, who urged the driver to return to the station.

Greg and Brandon continued to pursue the deliveryman as he fled the Brookhaven neighborhood, only abandoning the attempted lynching once reaching nearby Highway I-55.

Carlos Moore, Gibson’s attorney, shared his client’s happiness with the indictment, adding:

It’s been 10 months since the incident.

After nearly a year of delays, the case will most likely be delayed until late Spring of next year, according to the plaintiff’s attorney, since a court date for the Cases has not been set.

Original reporting by Janelle Griffith at NBC News.

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[ausetkmt]

Arbery killers ask court to overturn their hate-crime convictions

ATLANTA, Ga. - Attorneys for three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia subdivision asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to throw out their hate crime convictions, arguing that prosecutors relied on their history of racist comments without proving they targeted Arbery because he was Black.

t the end of the day, this issue isn’t about the racism of these defendants,” A.J. Balbo, representing Greg McMichael, told a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. “It’s about whether or not the government met its burden.”

Their arguments also strayed beyond the core issue of whether a racist intent to harm motivated the Feb. 23, 2020, pursuit that ended with Arbery shot dead in the street. Defense attorneys raised legal technicalities, including their contention that prosecutors failed to prove Arbery was killed on a public road.

Federal prosecutors countered that the trial jury in 2022 heard sufficient evidence to find the trio guilty of hate crimes as well as attempted kidnapping. Racist views evidenced by the men’s prior text messages and social media posts, they said, informed their mistaken assumption that Arbery was a fleeing criminal.

“The hate-fueled violence the defendants inflicted on Ahmaud is precisely the type of conduct that Congress targeted when it passed the Civil Rights Act,” said Brant Levine, an attorney for the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

Meanwhile, supporters of Arbery held a rally of their own Wednesday in Atlanta:

“I am so hurt, still, because when we saw what happened at first, we thought this would be over with now,” said Ahmaud Arbery’s aunt, Diane Jackson.

Jackson was just one of many outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta on Wednesday. The white men’s lawyers argue that evidence of past racist comments they made didn’t prove a racist intent to harm.

As he waits for a decision, Ahmaud Arbery’s father Marcus Arbery said on Wednesday that he thinks the jury got it right and feels confident the federal conviction will be upheld.

“Evidence was just too strong, and me and my family, we just have to be strong and just sit back,” he said. “We know everything is all right, because the evidence was just too strong against those three men.”

Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after spotting the 25-year-old man running in their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range with a shotgun.

More than two months passed without arrests, until Bryan’s graphic video of the killing leaked online and a national outcry erupted over Arbery’s death. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police and charges soon followed.

All three men were convicted of murder in a Georgia state court in late 2021, followed months later by the federal hate crimes trial.

In their oral arguments and legal briefs, lawyers for Greg McMichael and Bryan cited the prosecutors’ use of more than two dozen social media posts and text messages, as well as witness testimony, that showed all three men using racist slurs or otherwise disparaging Black people.

Bryan’s attorney, Pete Theodocion, called it “some of the ugliest, most repulsive evidence any of us have ever heard in a trial,” and explosive enough that prosecutors could sway a jury without proving a racist intent to harm Arbery himself.

“When the jury hears that evidence, we have to make sure that the government is actually presenting some evidence as to all the essential elements of crimes because it is such an uphill battle,” Theodocion told the judges.

Balbo said Greg McMichael initiated the pursuit of Arbery because he mistakenly suspected him of being a fleeing criminal. He had seen security camera videos in prior months that showed Arbery entering a neighboring home under construction.

When Arbery ran past the McMichaels’ home in February 2020, Balbo argued, Greg McMichael recognized him from those videos “by his height, his weight, his tattoos, his manner of dress.”

“If this person had been a 60-year-old Black man, Greg McMichael would not have engaged him,” Balbo said. “The race was a non-contributing role in this matter.”

One of the judges sounded skeptical. Judge Britt Grant, nominated to the appeals court by former President Donald Trump, said the trial evidence of racist intent behind Arbery’s killing “seems pretty overwhelming to me.”

None of the videos showed Arbery stealing, and police found no stolen property or weapons on his body.

Judge Elizabeth “Lisa” Branch, another Trump appellate court nominee; and District Court Judge Victoria Calvert, who was nominated by President Joe Biden to the federal bench and is serving temporarily on the 11th Circuit, also heard the arguments. The judges did not indicate how long they might take to rule.

The legal technicalities raised by the defense included Travis McMichael’s attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, arguing that prosecutors failed to prove the streets of the Satilla Shores subdivision where Arbery was killed were public roads, as stated in the indictment used to charge the men.

Copeland cited records of a 1958 meeting of Glynn County commissioners in which they rejected taking ownership of the streets from the subdivision’s developer. Prosecutors countered that service request records and trial testimony from a county official showed the streets had been maintained by the county government for decades.

Theodocion also argued that using their pickup trucks to cut off Arbery’s escape from the neighborhood didn’t amount to attempted kidnapping. He said the charge was improper because the men weren’t seeking ransom or some other benefit, an element required to prove the charge as a federal crime.

Levine countered that the McMichaels and Bryan sought the “satisfaction of catching a Black man that they assumed to be a criminal on the streets of their neighborhood.”

The trial judge sentenced both McMichaels to life in prison for their hate crime convictions, plus additional time — 10 years for Travis McMichael and seven years for his father — for openly carrying guns while committing violent crimes. Bryan received a lighter hate crime sentence of 35 years in prison, in part because he wasn’t armed and preserved the cellphone video that became crucial evidence.

All three also got 20 years for attempted kidnapping, to overlap with their hate crime sentences.

If the U.S. appeals court overturns any of their federal convictions, both McMichaels and Bryan would remain in prison. All three are serving life sentences in Georgia state prisons for murder, and have motions for new state trials pending before a judge.