She Wouldn’t Even Say George Floyd’s Name
Killer-cop Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 270 months, or twenty-two and one-half years, in prison for the murder of George Floyd. However, all experts agree that with “good behavior,” he will likely spend no more than fifteen years behind bars.
Today’s (June 25) sentencing hearing opened with “victim impact statements” from both the murdered victim’s and the convicted murderer’s families.
In the case of George Floyd’s family, two of his brothers and one nephew gave hard-to-watch, tearful and heart-wrenching statements about the murder of their loved one. People, particularly black people, across the country, across the world, cried right along…
The “Usual Suspects”: Cops, Drugs, Guns, Gangs, and White People
Chicago’s major (“mainstream”) media all report that this just past, unconscionably deadly, July Fourth weekend recorded up to eighty-eight people shot, including as many as fourteen killed, across this troubled city’s mostly black South and West Sides.
The Chicago Police Department (CPD) reports that from Friday the 2nd through early Monday morning, gunshot victims ranged in age from twelve to thirty years old.
Indeed, following these reports, Chicago Alderman Anthony Napolitano declared that this city is now undeniably a bonafide, certified, “war zone.” …
In 1976, after finally winning his first Grammy for “Best Album,” folk songster Paul Simon gave one of the most astounding acceptance speeches of all time. After thanking his fans, his producers, fellow musicians and singers, musical engineers… and even his parents, he then said:
“But most of all I want to thank Stevie Wonder for not making an album this year.”
You see, Simon thanked Stevie because for the previous two years running, Stevie Wonder had won successive Album of the Year Grammies, and indeed, after skipping ‘76, he won again in 1977.
This body shaming seems to be limited mainly to "Western" societies. In most of Africa, the "larger" women are considered the most "beautiful." Is that still "body shaming" but in the other direction?
Proposes Law to Finally End It and Pay Black People for Services Rendered
We can’t let [the failed coup d’état] go because it directly connects with our legacy of racism and hate in this country that stems from the genocide of the indigenous Americans and the enslavement of African Americans. The legacy of that is institutional racism and white nationalism; and if we don’t deal with it directly and explicitly in every institution, it will continue to persist and grow and permeate; and it will lead to a Donald Trump in the future. ~ Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY)
Newly elected Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was in the Capitol building on January 6. He…
The First One was the 400-Year-Long War and Not Quite Total Extermination of Native Americans
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please. They do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing, already given, and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. …
Defends Filibuster vs. Black Voting Rights Because Black Folks’ Rights Are Always Put on the Back-Burner
Once again, President Joe Biden has defended the race-based Senate filibuster, even in the face of a virulent, never-ending Racist Republican assault on voting access. This latest defense comes despite Biden’s characterization of the filibuster as ”Jim Crow on steroids.”
During a recent town hall hosted by CNN’s Don Lemon in Cincinnati, both Lemon and audience members tried hard to convince Biden that this current nationwide Republican push to enact “new and improved” voting restrictions should be, must be, his administration’s top, if not only, priority for the foreseeable future.
Indeed, Biden was again reminded of his previous rhetorical…
But ‘White Privilege’ Exists Only in the Paranoid Minds of Black People
Now comes word that a self-convicted domestic terrorist who was in the thick of the January 6 “insurrection” against this nation-state’s Capitol Building, a dyed-in-the-wool, Trump-flag-carrying supporter, received the first felony sentence yesterday for his proud participation in that event.
Federal prosecutors had asked that Paul Hodgkins, 38, be given eighteen months in the joint for not merely breaching the building itself but the heretofore sacrosanct Senate chamber as well. Hodgkins was videotaped and photographed as he posed for selfies on the Senate floor for more than thirty minutes. He is “caught” on camera rifling through Senators’ desks and papers…
He’s Still Willing to Sacrifice Voting Rights for ‘Bipartisanship’
President Joe Biden finally made his long-anticipated speech decrying the GOP’s unrelenting and largely successful national efforts to restrict further, if not stop altogether, black, brown, young, old, disabled, and/or poor peoples’ right to vote. These people now constitute not only the majority of Democratic Party voters but the overwhelming majority of the entire population of the United States.
Most liberal-to-moderate mass media talking heads and commentators lauded Biden’s speech for its unusual “passion” and sincerity. Indeed, at times, Biden raised his voice and pointed an accusatory finger at the camera as he sought to shame recalcitrant Senate Republicans into…
This is true for so-called "white" Americans. But James Baldwin (et al.) argues that "white" and "whiteness" both began when those very first 15th and 16th century European "explorers" and conquerors set forth across the seas and "discovered" that THEY were the world's true (and only) "minority."
Herbert Dyer, Jr.
Freelancer since the earth first began cooling. My beat, justice: racial, social, political, economic and cultural. I’m on FB, Twitter, Link, hdyerjr@gmail.com.
