Commentary by BlackKos editor JoanMar
Lorraine McGee will never, ever forgive herself. How can she? For as long as she lives she will be remembering the fateful day when she turned to the system for help and that system responded by sending murderers to her home rather than the angels of mercy she’d begged for. Johnny McGee, a 36-year-old Black man living with mental illness, was having a difficult morning. He was having one of his psychotic episodes and his mom didn’t think she could handle him or the situation anymore. She’d tried...she’d tried so hard but now she needed help from professionals. In desperation, she called 911. Her son suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and could they just send some help for him, please. She prepared the cops in advance:
"I called 911 and said 'My son is schizophrenic, bipolar, he has a mental disorder,' ” his mother, Lorraine Magee, said Tuesday. “I said when you come out here, I said send some policemen with experience in that area, so they won’t kill my child.”
“When he’s in his flash, when he flashes out, he’s like that, especially when you go up on him,” Magee said. “He’s going to start fighting. Yes, he’s going to start fighting to protect himself.”
She knew the danger. She is a Black woman who lives in the United States of America and she knew that there was a good chance that her son would not survive the day. What was a loving Black mother to do, America?! Imagine her heart pounding as she waited for the cops to arrive...she hoping and praying, “Please, G-d. Please, dear G-d...please don’t let them kill my son...”
Well, the cops came and promptly fired “at least” seven shots at her son killing him and plunging a mother into a world of unrelieving anguish.
Lorraine Magee said she begged police not to shoot.
“I said, 'Why you all shooting him?' ” Magee said. “He’s disabled. I said, 'He’s mental, he don’t know what he’s doing, he hears voices.' I said, 'Don’t kill him, please don’t kill him, please don’t kill him.' ”
[my bold]
Never accuse the media of not knowing their assignment. All the reports I’ve seen mention that the murdered man had a screwdriver...as if that was all the justification they needed to commit murder.
He had a screwdriver, they claimed; he ran at them and lifted his arm in a threatening manner. He deserved to die. The poor cops were in fear for their lives. They had no option but to empty their guns in him… in front of his traumatized mother.
Johnny McGee became one of at least 940 people killed by cops year-to-date. In October alone, cops killed 65 people. For emphasis, that’s 65 people killed in 31 days. Of those killed by cops so far this year, 109 of them were in the throes of psychotic distress. Yep, having a mental illness can be a death sentence in this country. We all thought that even without federal legislations things would get a little better after Chauvin lynched George Floyd in broad daylight, didn’t we? We thought that some self-awareness would kick in and they’d be trying a little harder to exercise some restraint in dealing with the public. After all, we thought, the eyes of the world would be on them now. No change. 1021 humans killed in 2020 and we are on pace to surpass that number this year. Video after video continues to come to light of cops blatantly abusing their power and resorting to verbal and physical violence as if such actions were standard operating procedure.
Having cops determinedly reducing the population by hundreds each year is not the least bit concerning to voters, political strategists, or the media. What terrifies the crap outta them, however, is the most vexing talk of Critical Race Theory and having all that woke “faculty lounge talk.” Nope, you can’t have that. Reports of thousands of people killed by law enforcement officers elicit nothing but a big yawn.
I am thinking of Loretta McGee today. I feel her pain. My heartfelt condolences, dear lady. May your son rest in peace. We will join the fight to call for justice for your Johnny. We call his name.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Terry McAuliffe’s defeat in Virginia shows what happens when you are in a war, and only one side fights. The raging battle over whether America is primarily a white nation or whether it is a multiracial democracy continues to define US politics, and we now have painful proof that Democrats’ approach of ignoring the attacks and trying to change the subject to non-racial topics is woefully inadequate.
Republican Glenn Youngkin’s campaign caught fire when he ratcheted up his attacks on so-called critical race theory (CRT), code for criticisms of any educational curriculum that addresses the country’s long history of racism and oppression of people of color. In complaining that CRT—a law school construct and not actually taught in pre-college courses in Virginia or anywhere else—teaches children to see everything through a lens of race,” Youngkin made the issue into the 2021 equivalent of Trump’s 2016 proposed wall along the Mexican border—a symbolic rallying cry for whites worried about the country’s rapid racial diversification. McAuliffe responded by trying to tie Youngkin to the unpopular Donald Trump, using race-neutral language, without realizing or mentioning that racism and white nationalism both predate and will outlast Trump.
The combination of Youngkin declaring war and McAuliffe pretending there was no war had two fatal electoral effects. First, Youngkin successfully lit the same fuse that ignited such fervent support for Trump across the country, resulting in the highest Republican vote total for any Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate ever. On the other hand, Democratic voters, especially people of color, were neither informed of the existence of a battle, nor encouraged to engage in it. McAuliffe ran a typical moderate campaign, and people of color voted in typical numbers, with slight increases over their numbers from the last gubernatorial election in 2017. This chart compiled from the exit poll data shows the mathematical difference between summoning your side to the battlefront and pretending there is no battle taking place:
It is not surprising that Youngkin’s racial call to arms resonated so strongly in Virginia, the state where racism and white nationalism began after white settlers began buying Black people in 1619 to do the lucrative but backbreaking work of picking tobacco on land previously occupied by Native Americans. Richmond, Va., was the capitol of the Confederacy, and an earlier generation of whites angry about the 1860 election of a president who didn’t think Black people should be bought and sold turned to violence, murdering thousands of fellow Virginians, starting with the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia’s Prince William County. Virginia is the state with the most monuments to the white nationalist leaders of the Confederacy, and the place where, during a 2017 rally to defend those monuments, James Alex Fields gunned his car into the crowd of anti-racist counterprotesters, tossing 32 year-old Heather Heyer onto his hood and flinging her body several feet away, killing her. After which Donald Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides of the protest about removing white supremacist statues.
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Attacks on CRT and school education on racial issues have gotten a lot of credit for Glenn Youngkin’s victory. A closer look at the evidence tells a more complicated story. Vox: Did critical race theory really swing the Virginia election?
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A little over a day after Democrats’ brutal defeat in the Virginia governor race, a bipartisan consensus was already emerging about what happened: Republican Glenn Youngkin’s message about the evils of “critical race theory” in schools crushed Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
Chris Rufo, one of the most prominent anti-CRT activists, has been taking victory laps on Twitter. “Glenn Youngkin made critical race theory the closing argument to his campaign and dominated in blue Virginia,” he writes. “We are building the most sophisticated political movement in America — and we have just begun.”
His critics agree. MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace said on air that “critical race theory, which isn’t real, turned the suburbs 15 points to the Trump-insurrection endorsed Republican.”
Even some nonpartisan analysts, like NPR’s Domenico Montanaro, credited the campaign against education on systemic racial issues with Youngkin’s win. “Democrats have to come up with a convincing way to answer the (often false) charges about how children are being taught about structural racism in schools,” Montanaro writes. “Youngkin rode that wave and owned the issue.”
The critical race theory-focused analysis is convenient for both Republicans and Democrats. For the former, it’s proof that they’re on the winning side of America’s seemingly endless culture wars. For the latter, it’s more evidence that Republicans are the party of white backlash and anti-Blackness.
There’s one problem: The evidence for this conclusion is surprisingly weak.
It is true that exit polls showed education and critical race theory as important issues to Virginia voters. But exit polls, in addition to generally not being super reliable, are not a very good gauge of what actually swung races: Among other reasons, partisans who would have voted for their party anyway often parrot whatever message they heard from the campaign or allied media. And when you zoom out, the pattern of the night’s results is not consistent with a CRT-focused explanation.
The election returns from Virginia show a uniform swing against McAuliffe, not an especially strong backlash in areas where CRT was an especially prominent issue. In New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, there was a similarly sized swing against Democrats despite CRT not being a major part of the campaign.
A broader look at election night on November 2 tells a different and more familiar story: McAuliffe lost because of a nationalized backlash against an unpopular incumbent president.
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The building, which looks more like a slick big-city condo than the headquarters of a nonprofit, is named after Dave Ward, a local TV personality who founded Crime Stoppers of Houston in 1980. Ward looks exactly like the retired news anchor that he is, with sharp blue eyes and distinguished gray hair. Starting in the 1980s, he aired segments on unsolved crimes, dramatized by acting students, and called on his audience to share tips with Crime Stoppers. Ward was the final speaker that January day, and he didn’t disappoint, reprising his old nightly act: “Five-thousand-dollar cash reward this week for information leading to the arrest and charging of the … asshole who committed this felony!”
Crime Stoppers has 20,000 chapters across the United States, from California to New York, which take in anonymous crime tips and turn them over to police. If the tip leads to an arrest, the caller gets a cash prize. Billing itself as “a partnership between the Community, the Media, and Law Enforcement,” the nonprofit network has for decades been a staple part of American policing and an unquestioned element of the culture that encourages citizens to have constant vigilance for potential crimes. In an era of police reform, however, Crime Stoppers’ role in shaping policy and public perception on criminal justice has received little scrutiny.
A perusal of the Houston chapter’s financials explains the slick new headquarters. The chapter posts revenue of almost $2 million and nets millions in donations each year. Some of the city’s wealthiest people sit on the board. Crime Stoppers of Houston claims to have helped solve 35,767 cases since 1980, with 374 in 2020 alone, leading to 238 arrests and payments to 248 tipsters totaling $310,800. It says its work has led to $299,131 in seized and recovered “property and drugs” this year (which, given asset forfeiture laws in Texas, likely ended up with the Houston Police Department). Additionally, this September, District Attorney Kim Ogg gave the chapter a $500,000 check from what she called “dirty money.”
“This is the people’s money,” Ogg said. “It was taken from criminals, from their proceeds, it was forfeited through a lawful process, and it’s being reinvested into the public safety of our community thanks to Crime Stoppers.”
The story of Crime Stoppers’ funding, however, is not quite that simple. In fact, Texas law dictates that felony defendants pay a $50 fee that goes to Crime Stoppers as a condition of their parole, even if the organization had nothing to do with the reason they went to prison. Failure to pay that fine can send them right back to jail. Texas is not alone in this. At least seven other states charge defendants a fee that goes to their local Crime Stoppers: Louisiana, New York, Florida, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Indiana. Texas also has a statute empowering a judge to order a defendant to “pay a fine repaying all or part of a reward paid by a crime stoppers organization,” though no local lawyers I spoke to could recall a case where they had seen that happen.
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Alvin Bragg has been elected Manhattan’s first Black district attorney.
The 48-year-old Democrat easily defeated Republican Thomas Kenniff on Tuesday to join a wave of progressive, reform-minded prosecutors in several big U.S cities.
When Bragg takes office in January, he’ll inherit an ongoing investigation of former President Donald Trump. Manhattan prosecutors this year charged Trump’s company and its longtime finance chief with tax fraud.
Bragg campaigned partly on a promise to change the culture of the district attorney’s office. He said he wants to “shrink the system” and look for alternatives to prosecuting small “crimes of poverty.”
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According to a report from The Marshall Project, Black youths are more likely to be on the receiving end of violence by police officers — and a “striking number” of those victims are Black girls.
Per its mission statement, The Marshall Project is “a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system. We have an impact on the system through journalism, rendering it more fair, effective, transparent and humane.”
They strive to publish stories that expose wrongs, bringing them to the attention of officials who can take action, as well as give visibility to proposals and critiques from the criminal justice community.
Their most recent report has a stunning two-sentence title: Police Hurt Thousands of Teens Every Year. A Striking Number Are Black Girls.
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In a courtroom in Charlottesville, Virginia, there is a trial going on that is, day by day, revealing the inner thoughts of some of America’s most prominent racists. Some of these men you might know: neo-Nazis Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, self-proclaimed “shock jock” Christopher Cantwell. But their names aren’t really so important—what’s more important is what they’ve done. They’re accused of orchestrating the violence of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, from the white supremacists carrying tiki torches and chanting “you will not replace us” to the explosion of brutality that followed, when a man drove his car into a crowd, killing a woman named Heather Heyer. Four years later, the man who drove that car has been sentenced to life in prison. The Confederate statues these men came to Charlottesville to defend have been torn down. But the organizations that brought so many white supremacists together en masse still exist. This trial, Sines v. Kessler, is intent on bringing those organizations down.
Kathleen Belew, a historian at the University of Chicago who studies the white power movement, looks at this trial and sees echoes of cases that have come before. She says what’s notable about this instance is that the plaintiffs are trying to hold an entire network to account for what happened in the summer of 2017. They are doing that by piecing together chat logs and direct messages, violent memes and carpool requests. Usually, accountability for domestic terrorism has looked like a criminal trial for one or two defendants. This case, though is trying the system. On Wednesday’s episode of What Next, I spoke with Belew about how the civil trial in Charlottesville aims to take down the super structure of white supremacy. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Kathleen Belew: What we’re talking about is an organized event with implications for multiple activists, groups, leaders, and rank-and-file members of the white power and militant right movement. This is a movement that has been with us since the late 1970s, that has over and over again attacked American infrastructure, civilians, leaders, people, religious houses of worship … it goes on and on like this. It is an interlocking social movement that, as the history shows us, is usually manned by the same people and has organized very coherently online since 1983–84. Sometimes you hear about the founding of Stormfront in 1996 as the prehistory of social network activism on the right. But these groups were establishing this thing called Liberty Net in the ’80s, in which they used early computer to computer message boards that were keyword-secured. Liberty Net was not just ideological writings and assassination lists, but also things like personal ads and cookbook recipes and things like that. So this was social networking way before Facebook, a network that was trained at locking people into a social movement and providing a platform for radical action. The fact that this movement is still with us is partly because it has avoided being described as a movement. Instead, we have mostly heard about white power action as “lone-wolf violence.” And when we hear these stories of lone-wolf attacks, what that does is really disable the public response and the political will to confront this violent movement.
Mary Harris: Watching the Unite the Right gathering unfold in 2017, you saw something more than a protest. You saw a performance, a tying up of ugly ideas in what was meant to be a palatable, even attractive, package. That momentum culminated in deadly violence.
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IF HUBRIS COULD fuel a power station, then the African National Congress (ANC) would never have to worry about blackouts. Ahead of local elections on November 1st South Africa’s ruling party is again presiding over rolling power cuts, a result of ineptitude and corruption at Eskom, the public electricity provider. There has already been more “load-shedding”—the euphemism for when Eskom selectively cuts power to neighbourhoods or towns when it does not generate enough for the whole country—in 2021 than in any other year. The power cuts are strangling sub-Saharan Africa’s most industrialised economy and casting a shadow over a country once seen as a beacon of hope for the continent.
One might therefore expect a glimmer of humility from the leaders of the ANC, which has ruled South Africa without a break for more than 27 years since the end of white rule. But on October 28th Cyril Ramaphosa told residents of a township east of Johannesburg that “If you don't vote for the ANC, then electricity may never be restored.” The president then asked: “Which other party do you trust to ensure that electricity is restored here?"
These elections may help answer Mr Ramaphosa’s question. As well as controlling the national government, the ANC is in charge of most of the 278 cities, districts and towns that make up local government. All of these are up for grabs. And voters may have noticed that South Africa is an awful state. Real GDP per head has fallen since 2015. Unemployment is at a record high. Many towns lack regular running water, working sewage plants and rubbish collection. Although Mr Ramaphosa has sporadically gone after those involved in corruption under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, his party still treats state finances as a slush fund. Barely a week passes without an ANC apparatchik being assasinated, since public positions are lucrative enough to kill for. In July, when Mr Zuma was briefly imprisoned for defying a court order related to a cesspit-full of corruption charges, the former president’s supporters instigated riots in which more than 300 people died. It was the worst mass violence since apartheid. There are, in other words, plenty of reasons for voters to distrust the ANC.
And there are signs that an increasing number do. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994 the ANC has won more than half of the vote at every nationwide election. But enduring primacy masks decline. After peaking at almost 69.7% at the general election in 2004, its support has dipped, reaching 57.5% at the most recent general ballot in 2019. In local elections it typically does worse, as its voters are more likely to stay at home. In 2016, as the full extent of graft under Mr Zuma became clear, a relatively high turnout for the opposition cut the ANC’s share to 53.9%.
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Facebook has removed a post by Ethiopia’s prime minister for “inciting and supporting violence” as diplomats stepped up attempts to instigate a ceasefire in the country’s year-long civil war.
Abiy Ahmed, the winner of the 2019 Nobel peace prize, vowed to “bury” his government’s enemies in a Facebook post on Sunday as forces from the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) moved closer to Addis Ababa. Facebook’s owner, Meta, said on Thursday that it had removed the post.
“As the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia intensifies, we are committed to helping keep people safe and preventing online and offline harm through our platforms,” the company said. “We were made aware of a post by Ethiopia’s prime minister and removed this for violating our policies against inciting and supporting violence. At Meta we remove content from individuals or organisations that violates our community standards, no matter who they are.”
The company’s approach towards political figures has changed significantly this year since Facebook barred Donald Trump until at least January 2023. Announcing that suspension in June, Facebook said it would end a policy of keeping up posts by politicians even if they broke posting guidelines.
The Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen claimed last month that the company was “literally fanning ethnic violence” in countries including Ethiopia because it was not policing its service adequately outside the US.
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