December 28, 2014

Reality Check

Protesters Must Be Mindful of Dirty Tricks
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Immediately after hearing about the killing of two New York City police officers by a seemingly mentally-deranged Black male, I called my 48-year-old son whose work often requires him to be in the city at night.

“Unless there is an emergency situation,” I told him, “it will be best to avoid being on city streets at night for the next couple of days. And spread the message to your friends who live in the city.”

This may sound like an overreaction to some but I was convinced that some revenge-seeking police officers or some of their supporters would strike out at any Black male they came across.

This attitude was based on lessons I learned from Brother Malcolm X in the early 1960s on tactics used by the police and other government agencies to go after Black males. When hearing some of the protesters chanting “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!” I remembered Brother Malcolm warning his supporters in the Organization of Afro-American Unity to be very suspicious of anyone in attendance at one of our meetings or rallies who shouted out, “We should go bomb the subways.”

That person, he said, should be immediately removed from our gathering. Nine times out of 10, Brother Malcolm told us, that person is a plant working for either the police or other hostile government agencies. And if there is even the briefest discussion of his or her proposal everyone in the room could be charged with conspiracy.

Equally relevant are the events that occurred in Ferguson over the acquittal of the police officer who killed unarmed Michael Brown.

First, there was the announcing of the grand jury’s decision at 9 PM at night. In my nearly 50 years as a journalist I had never heard of such an explosive issue being publicly announced at 9 PM.

Then, there were the fires. For more than a week before the decision was announced, there was constant news reports about extensive preparations by the police and National Guard to prevent any expression of violence. Despite all those precautions, fires were set and allowed to burn. It is entirely possible, and to me probable, that those fires were set off by supporters of the police.

In both New York City and Ferguson press coverage and commentary focused almost exclusively on the chants and the fires, respectively, instead of the police misconduct which led to the deaths of two unarmed Black males.

The chants and fires were huge propaganda gifts for fearmongering haters such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, clever Bill O’Reilly and their cohorts throughout the country.

What all this means is that those who challenge racial and economic injustices must understand clearly that a few hundred or even a few thousand people chanting “No justice, no peace” and “Hands up, don’t shoot,” won’t do it in 2014 and beyond. They must become very knowledgeable about the true devious tactics of the defenders of those status quos and develop strategies to counteract their destructive agenda.

A. Peter Bailey, whose latest book is, Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher, can be reached This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Dec. 21, 2014

President Obama says Black America ‘Better Off Now’ Than When He Took Office
By Hazel Trice Edney

Closing a year-end press conference, President Obama lists strides he's made for Black America.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – President Obama says Black America is better now than it was six years ago when he first took office.

“Like the rest of America, Black America in the aggregate is better off now than it was when I came into office,” he said in response to a question during a year-end press Conference Dec. 19. “The jobs that have been created, the people who’ve gotten health insurance, the housing equity that’s been recovered, the 401 pensions that have been recovered - a lot of those folks are African American.  They’re better off than they were.”

However, as the President answered the question from April Ryan, White House Correspondent for the American Urban Radio Network, he had to concede that major ills still exist.

“The gap between income and wealth of White and Black America persists,” he said. “And we’ve got more work to do on that front.  I’ve been consistent in saying that this is a legacy of a troubled racial past of Jim Crow and slavery.  That’s not an excuse for Black folks.  And I think the overwhelming majority of Black people understand it’s not an excuse.  They’re working hard. They’re out there hustling and trying to get an education, trying to send their kids to college.  But they’re starting behind, oftentimes, in the race.”

The President has been forced to become increasingly outspoken on race issues; especially over the past two years as killings of unarmed Black males by authority figures, mainly police, have dominated news coverage.

Upon the jury’s acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, the killer of unarmed teen, Trayvon Martin, he stated, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”

Recently he has spoken out strongly amidst mass protests around the nation against police killings of a string of Black unarmed men, including 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner, a Staten Island father of six, killed in a chokehold.

Despite the recent uprisings that have spread around the world, President Obama says, “We’ve seen some progress.”

He pointed to initiatives by his administration that he says have had “measurable results.” He listed education reforms, increase in high school graduation rates, and a “record numbers of young people attending college.”

He added, “In many states that have initiated reforms, you’re seeing progress in math scores and reading scores for African American and Latino students as well as the broader population.”

The President also listed criminal justice reform as among his successes.

He said, “Last year was the first time in 40 years where we had the federal prison population go down and the crime rate go down at the same time, which indicates the degree to which it’s possible for us to think smarter about who we’re incarcerating, how long we’re incarcerating, how are we dealing with nonviolent offenders, how are we dealing with drug offenses, diversion programs, drug courts.”

But, the President could not ignore the past four months of roaring protests over police killings. Referring to the incidents in Ferguson and Staten Island that have spotlighted obvious racial tensions that remain, he added, “But we’ve still got more work to go.”

The President’s comments focused on racial tensions that still remain beneath the surface in America; despite general progress.

He said the Ferguson and Staten Island cases have caused “a growing awareness in the broader population of what I think many communities of color have understood for some time, and that is that there are specific instances at least where law enforcement doesn’t feel as if it’s being applied in a colorblind fashion.”

He pointed to the Task Force on 21^st Century Policing, headed by Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey, and Laurie Robinson, a former assistant attorney general, now a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. That task force will return with recommendations March 2.

“The task force that I formed is supposed to report back to me in 90 days - not with a bunch of abstract musings about race relations, but some really concrete, practical things that police departments and law enforcement agencies can begin implementing right now to rebuild trust between communities of color and the police department.”

He said he intends to implement the recommendations as soon as he gets them. The press conference was held for the President to close out the year as he prepared to spend Christmas with his family in Hawaii.

Despite the fact that the protests have sometimes turned violent; particularly in Ferguson where fires were set in the wake of a grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, Obama says he think the conversation has been good for America.

“I actually think it’s been a healthy conversation that we’ve had,” he told reporters packed into the White House Press Briefing Room. “These are not new phenomenon. The fact that they’re now surfacing, in part because people are able to film what have just been, in the past, stories passed on around a kitchen table, allows people to make their own assessments and evaluations.  And you’re not going to solve a problem if it’s not being talked about.”

Dec. 21, 2014

Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the 'Other America'
I fear for the future of this country.

By Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.)

NEWS ANALYSIS

Protestor's sign during the Dec. 13 "National March Against Police Violence". PHOTO: Trice Edney News Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Growth and progress could be this nation's reward for facing the challenge of our times with courage and a demand for equal justice. The American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the civil-rights movement of the 1960s were moments when the United States could have been torn from its very foundation, but a creative response to this turmoil helped move the nation forward.

At its best, non-violent protest is a strategically engineered crisis designed to wake up a sleeping nation, to educate and sensitize those who become awakened, and to ignite a sense of righteous indignation in people of goodwill to press for transformation. That's what the protests galvanized by the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and others are trying to accomplish.

Many Americans find themselves at a loss to understand the depth of the anger and frustration of the protestors. It might be worthwhile for them to read a speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on April 14, 1967, at Stanford University. A colleague of mine in Congress reminded me of his words, and I find they ring as true today as they did almost 50 years ago.

In the speech, King describes what he calls the "other America," one of two starkly different American experiences that exist side-by-side. One people "experience the opportunity of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all its dimensions," and the other a "daily ugliness" that spoils the purest hopes of the young and old, leaving only "the fatigue of despair." The Brown and Garner cases themselves are not the only focus of the protestors' grievances, but they represent a glimpse of a different America most Americans have found it inconvenient to confront.

One group of people in this country can expect the institutions of government to bend in their favor, no matter that they are supposedly regulated by impartial law. In the other, children, fathers, mothers, uncles, grandfathers, whole families, and many generations are swept up like rubbish by the hard, unforgiving hand of the law.

They are offered no lenience, even for petty offenses, in a system that seems hell-bent on warehousing them by the millions of people, while others escape the consequences of pervasive malfeasance scot-free. Some people rationalize that it was unfortunate, but not altogether disturbing, that Michael Brown was put to death without due process because, after all, he allegedly took some cigarillos from a corner store. But who went to jail for the mortgage fraud that robbed his community and other black communities around the country of 50 percent of their wealth?

Should people accused of stealing be held accountable? Definitely. But the justice system entangles the most vulnerable so effectively that even the innocent often find it easier to just plead guilty. Meanwhile the capable, and sometimes the stealthiest and most damaging, are slapped on the wrist and given a pass.

If Americans are to be honest with themselves, they must admit we may never know what actually happened to Michael Brown because of the unusual way the grand-jury process was conducted by a local prosecutor whose independence was in doubt. They must admit that publishing a selective collection of details online corrupts the integrity of grand-jury deliberations and proceedings meant to be held in confidence. It subverts a judicial process designed to air the arguments of both sides—the victim and the perpetrator—exposing them both to challenge and cross-examination.

Denying any victim of homicide the right to a public trial is a painful outcome, but to distort the process and use it to achieve that goal compounds the tragedy of homicide with robbery. It's no wonder then that even videotaped evidence showing Eric Garner pleading to breathe 11 times would lead to no indictment. It proves the protestors' point—in some courts even the worst offenders can go free as long as they wear a badge.

Don't get me wrong—I work with police everyday. Whenever I see them, I let them know I appreciate their service. The job is difficult, and there are many responsible officers, but does that mean they should avoid scrutiny when they take a human life, especially under questionable circumstances? Isn't that the law they are supposed to defend?

Thousands of people—young and old, Black, White, and brown—are speaking to the nation.  They are "dying in" to shake it out of denial. They are saying that American society is blind to hundreds, even thousands of murders perpetrated in its name by agents of governments. They are saying that blood is on the hands of the nation and its people. (Black-on-Black crime, or White-on-White crime for that matter, is an important but different discussion, and it does not justify what is done by agents with the presumed consent of society.)

Today's protestors demand that Americans confront several questions as a national community:

Is it all right with them that police kill hundreds of unarmed teens and young men every year without having to account for their actions? Do they mind that a retired veteran who accidentally pressed his medical-alert button is now dead at the hands of police? Or that a 12-year-old boy playing with a toy gun in a park near his home, a 22-year-old man talking on a cell phone in a Walmart, a 17-year-old walking home from the corner store, an unarmed 23-year-old man attending his own bachelor party shot 50 times, or a 7-year-old girl at home asleep in her bed were all killed by their representatives? One recent study reports that one Black man is killed by police or vigilantes in our country every 28 hours, almost one a day.

Doesn't that bother you?

Ever since Black men first came to these shores we have been targets of wanton aggression. We have been maimed, drugged, lynched, burned, jailed, enslaved, chained, disfigured, dismembered, drowned, shot, and killed. As a Black man, I have to ask why. What is it that drives this carnage? Is it fear? Fear of what? Why is this nation still so willing to suspend the compassion it gives freely to others when the victims are men who are black or brown?

If Bloody Sunday took place in Ferguson today, would Americans be shocked enough to do anything about it?

Soon the nation will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day unarmed, nonviolent protestors were brutalized by deputized citizens and Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. As a leader of that march, I wonder, if the same attack took place in Ferguson today, would Americans be shocked enough to do anything about it? What has happened to the soul of America that makes citizens more interested in justifying these murders than stopping them?

Dr. King declared in his 1967 speech, "Racism is evil because its ultimate logic leads to genocide .... It is an affirmation," he said, "that the very being of a people is inferior," and therefore unworthy of the same regard as other human life. Do Americans accept the deaths of hundreds and thousands of young men and boys simply because they are black? Ignorance of their day-to-day lives is no excuse for what is done in society’s name.

In the presence of injustice, no one has the right to be silent. Members of government and the business, faith, and even law-enforcement communities must stand up and say enough is enough. Let the young lives of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sean Bell, John Crawford, and Trayvon Martin serve a higher purpose to shine the light of truth on our democracy and challenge us to meet the demand for equal justice in America.

There is a growing discontent in this country. And if the fires of frustration and discontent continue to grow without redress, I fear for the future of this country. There will not be peace in America. I do not condone violence under any circumstance. It does not lead to lasting change. I do not condone either public rioting or state-sponsored terrorism. "True peace," King would tell us, "is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

This commentary was first published on TheAtlantic.com.

Dec. 21, 2014

Civil Rights Leaders Express Outrage, Sorrow Over Killing of New York Police Officers
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Civil rights leaders, who have consistently encouraged non-violent protests to push for justice in police shootings of unarmed Black men, are vehemently condemning the assassination-style killing of two New York City police officers Saturday.

“I have spoken to the Garner family and we are outraged by the early reports of the police killed in Brooklyn today. Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases,” Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement Saturday.

President Obama released a statement reminding that police “deserve our respect and gratitude every single day. Tonight, I ask people to reject violence and words that harm, and turn to words that heal — prayer, patient dialogue, and sympathy for the friends and family of the fallen.”

New York Police Department Officers Rafael Ramos, 40, a father of two,  and newly-wed Wenjian Liu, 32, were both shot in the head and upper torso at point blank range as they sat in their patrol car. The shootings follow mass marches and protests across the nation against police shootings of unarmed Black men which had been mostly peaceful. Both youth and seasoned leaders had called for non-violence.

But the gunman, identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley of Baltimore, with a long police record, was described by the NAACP as “a troubled individual” committing an “act of vigilante justice.” After shooting the officers, Brinsley, 28, then fled and shot and killed himself on a subway platform as police closed in, according to reports.  He had also shot his former girlfriend in Baltimore. She is expected to survive.

Brinsley's alleged statements on social media mentioned the chokehold killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y. and the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. “I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today,” Brinsley allegedly wrote on an Instagram page, according to widespread reports and the police. “They Take 1 Of Ours . . . Let’s Take 2 of Theirs…This May Be My Final Post.”

The Garner and Brown cases had sparked mass protests, largely encouraged by authorities and even President Obama as long as they remained non-violent. The outrage had escalated when grand juries refused to indict the officers involved in either killings, which had nothing to do with Ramos or Liu.

“We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown. We have been criticized at National Action Network for not allowing rhetoric or chanting of violence and would abruptly denounce it at all of our gatherings,” said the statement by Sharpton, who led tens of thousands to the U. S. Capitol last Saturday, demanding an end to the killings of unarmed Black men by police. “The Garner family and I have always stressed that we do not believe that all police are bad, in fact we have stressed that most police are not bad.”

The New York Times quoted Mayor Bill de Blasio as saying, “It is an attack on all of us; it’s an attack on everything we hold dear.”

A string of statements from Black leaders also condemned the killing of the officers.

“All lives matter,” said a statement from Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio). "This is not about race or affiliation, and it isn't about black versus blue.”

An NAACP statement stressed the apparent mental state of Brinsley. "In no way does the NAACP support this act of vigilante justice by a troubled individual. While our criminal justice system is not without deep and divisive flaws, we know that police officers, who risk their own safety for ours, play a critical and necessary role in keeping every community safe. Our sincerest sympathies go out to the friends and the families of the slain officers. The loss of any life at the hands of violence ‎is tragic. We who believe in peace and freedom, fairness and equality, understand that progress can only be achieved by intimate and intentional collaboration of law enforcement and community members."

A joint statement from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law said despite the sorrow of the deaths of the officers, justice is still the goal in the deaths of unarmed Black men around the nation.

“While some may suggest a causal link between these killings and the recent protests and activism focused on the serious issue of police violence against unarmed African Americans, we caution against escalating an already tense national state through rumor and conjecture,” they stated. “Whatever motivation lay in the apparently troubled mind of the now deceased shooter of these officers, there is no connection between the peaceful protests of thousands of people of all races all over the country and, indeed, around the world, and this hideous act of violence...As stewards of civil and human rights, we continue to seek a productive and open dialogue about ways to improve relations between communities of color and law enforcement and remain unwavering in our demand for accountability when any innocent lives are taken.”