Lucia McBath: There had to be some thought of race The mother of Jordan Davis, Lucia McBath talks about about the Michael Dunn trial and how she is fighting for gun law reform as the national spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

Cop Breaks Leg of 10-Year-Old Who Filmed Him - The Root

In a lawsuit filed in New York City, Krystle Silvera claims that she was sexually assaulted and her son Courtney’s leg was broken after police knocked on her door looking for her ex-boyfriend. 



Cop Breaks Leg of 10-Year-Old Who Filmed Him - The Root

Did White Male Insecurity Kill Jordan Davis? - The Root

For angry white men like Dunn, Jordan Davis’ “gangsta rap” music and Trayvon Martin’s “hoodie” symbolize a larger culture war in which putatively wholesome American culture is under siege by blackness. “Stand your ground” laws, Dunn believes, give Americans the right to defend themselves against “the denigration of women” and “the violence and lifestyle that the ‘gangsta rap’ music and the ‘thug life’ ” adopted by “an entire generation” of “young black men.”

Awaiting trial, Dunn wrote several letters to his family and friends complaining about how “jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs.” In a letter to his daughter, he offered the following solution to the problem of  black thuggery: “This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these f--king idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

Threatened by growing black economic and political power in the early 20th century, white men calling themselves the Ku Klux Klan used this same portrayal of black men as violent, sexual predators to justify racial terrorism. It’s estimated that from 1880 to 1930, more than2,400 African Americans were lynched, often for insulting white men or forgetting “their place.” For contemporary angry white men, standing up to “gangsta rap” and “thugs” is akin to night-riding on black men, as portrayed in D.W. Griffith’s classic 1915 film The Birth of a Nation.

Although economic downturns disproportionately affect black unemployment and home ownership, working-class and college-educated whites are now feeling the sting of restricted opportunity. In his book Angry White Men, sociologist Michael Kimmel describes how these men often blame the trifecta of feminism, affirmative action and immigration for their woes.

The relative devaluing of white privilege has been interpreted as racial oppression of whites and “reverse discrimination.” Opinion polls (pdf) suggest that half of all white Americans now see themselves as the targets of racism, and that number pushes past 60 percent among self-identified Republicans and among those who watch Fox News.

Did White Male Insecurity Kill Jordan Davis? - The Root

World's Most Wanted Drug Kingpin Arrested

Police Brutality Backfires (Original)

Federal Government OKs Banks Taking Marijuana Money

"The Treasury Department “seeks to move from the shadows the historically covert financial operations of marijuana businesses.”

Prosecutors: Fla. teen’s slaying was premeditated | theGrio

"Grand jury indicts man in Jordan Davis shooting on first degree murder charge; faces life in prisonJordan Davis case: Opening statements in trial over loud music deathJordan Davis case has echoes of George Zimmerman trialIs Jordan Davis another Trayvon Martin?Jordan Davis’ shooter writes ‘shockingly racist’ letters from jail

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A state forensic analyst says a Florida man charged with killing a teen over loud musicwould have had to remove his gun from a holster and then load it just before the shooting."

Film Based On A Palestinian Girl's Life Stirs Controversy : NPR

Film Based On A Palestinian Girl's Life Stirs Controversy : NPR

Proud To Be Indigenous American

An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow - NYTimes.com

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.



An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow - NYTimes.com

Police Officer Slices Off Woman's Weave In Unnecessarily Rough Arrest MadameNoire

Porky is at it again.  Now this is wrong.  You don't mess with a Black woman's weave!



Police Officer Slices Off Woman's Weave In Unnecessarily Rough Arrest MadameNoire

Melissa Harris-Perry The problem with using the ‘thug’ word Richard Sherman’s post-game interview last Sunday was received by many through the prism of race. Jelani Cobb and John McWhorter join the MHP table.

Melissa Harris-Perry on msnbc

Dirty Needles Spike AIDS Epidemic in New Orleans

US: Left Out of Immigration Reform

US: Raised on the Sex Offender Registry

▶ US: Raised on the Sex Offender Registry - YouTube

US: Raised on the Sex Offender Registry

US still lags on human rights, says report | MSNBC

"Even without the revelations of widespread domestic government surveillance, 2013 was hardly a banner year for human rights in the United States, according to a report released this week by Human Rights Watch.

In its World Report 2014, HRW singled out the U.S. criminal justice system as a major source of human rights violations, thanks to systemic problems that range from severe sentencing requirements to the misuse of solitary confinement. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. While the overall U.S. population has decreased over the past four years, some 1.6 million people were incarcerated in federal and state prisons at the end of 2012. An additional 700,000 were held in local jails.

The report also pointed out that the criminal justice system is filled disproportionately with men of color, a point both President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have mentioned while discussing the need for sentencing reforms in drug cases. Forty-four percent of people serving time in federal prisons for drug crimes are African-American, while they comprise only 13% of the total U.S. population.

Mandatory minimum sentences played a huge part in the prison population boom of the past 30 years and in the explosion of elderly prisoner populations that will continue to increase. A report issued by the American Civil Liberties Union in November found that more than 3,200 people were serving life sentences for non-violent crimes. A December Human Rights Watch report alleged widespread pressure on defendants to plead guilty or face extreme prison terms.

Solitary confinement also drew attention in 2013 when thousands of inmates in California protested against prison conditions there. Prisoners at the Secure Housing Unit at the state’s notorious Pelican Bay State Prison played a major role in that protest. Approximately 400 inmates in the facility have been held in solitary confinement for more than a decade. Extended solitary confinement is recognized as torture by the international human rights community.

The criminal justice system was not the only institution to lock people up with little to no recourse. Immigration detention has skyrocketed during Obama’s presidency, and hundreds of thousands of non-citizens are detained and deported each year. Individuals dealing with immigration proceedings receivefewer civil liberties guarantees than people held in the criminal justice system. The Human Rights Watch report noted that Congress failed to make any meaningful progress toward comprehensive immigration reform last year.

America’s human rights issues are not only related of domestic policy. Despite revived efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, 152 men remain in limbo there, and that number is unlikely to approach zero anytime soon. Last year saw a widespread hunger strike at the prison that grew to more than 100 prisoners and brought renewed scrutiny to the 12-year-old prison. Obama promised again in May to close the facility. Six detainees have been transfered since August, but even if all 82 of the remaining prisoners who have been cleared for release or transfer leave the prison, serious problems remain.

There are 45 men the U.S. still considers to be too dangerous to ever set free, but who cannot be tried because there is not enough evidence for a trial. Human rights groups in the United States and abroad have repeatedly called on the president to close the prison at Guantanamo and to stop holding people without charging them with a crime.

Obama and his adminstration have made some strides toward addressing the prison system’s major problems. In August, Attorney General Holder announced new sentencing guidelines for drug crimes in an effort to reduce the number of prisoners serving long sentences for non-violent drug crimes. On Jan. 23, Holder also urged Congress to pass the Smarter Sentencing Act, a bill that would give judges greater discretion when making sentencing decisions.

While it is too early to know if U.S. attorneys will follow the spirit of the new guidelines when it comes to charging and sentencing, it could have a serious effect on how large a part the criminal justice system plays in next year’s human rights status report."

The Somnath Bharti incident has made life in Delhi hell for Africans | Mail Online