Category Archives: blacklivesmatter

Teen killed by stray bullet while police fire at dog during response to ‘loud music’

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Authored by Sam Levin, of San Francisco. Published by The Guardian on June 23, 2017. See link below.

Sometimes one feels the urgent, compelling need to scream. At least somebody would hear. Sure, that might relieve outrage, anger and disappointment, until tomorrow when the same thoughtlessness repeats and another family grieves. But citizens are not merely frustrated, the scream will be heard, citizens want authorities to listen and to act positively. It is a public safety issue that words directly from Attorney General, Jeff Sessions tells that he doesn’t know or want to learn, about very serious occurrences taking place in the United States. This is not a training issue.

Teen killed by stray bullet while police fire at dog during response to ‘loud music’  

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My Dear U. S Government, Please Stop Trying to Save Me

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By Leyland A. King June 10, 2017

After centuries of arduous work to give me freedom by saving me, I beg of you, please stop. The fact is, that when there is any rescuing done at all, the beneficiary is only you. For centuries!

Of course, external threats and domestic terror are exempt. That is your cardinal role, and even that needs rethinking, but it’s not my focus here. What are my focus and consternation are the sweat and treasure needlessly expended; all devoted to saving me from myself. I never made an appeal and I am so aware that even if I did, the remedy you concoct is too often detrimental to me and those similarly entangled in the widening, strengthening, all-consuming tentacled web flung upon me. Me! A person whose greatest vice is a weekend gelato and a pecan sticky bun.

You, having made vices crimes, then turn around and tax the very crimes.  I am flabbergasted that you could not have distinguished (1) the difference and (2) the consequence of the crimes you created.

Since our institutions follow your lead and adopt your worldview, one cannot be surprised that the sale of two cigarettes might be more important than human life; in your zeal to save me from myself, I pay the price through my insecurity and unceasing surveillance. Thus, I don’t have to actually engage the marijuana crime, it is sufficient to lose my personal freedom or life because a cop claimed to have smelled marijuana as he passed my car. Demanding that my constitutional rights are respected could bring upon me a swarm of law enforcers to kill me. I’m not exaggerating, this is what you have done to save me from potential vice. Me!

Gambling is a vice. You made it a crime. A few retirees and six slot machines in a storefront, bring hell’s coals upon them. Secretive sex; having a beer all by myself on my own driveway, could get me manhandled and arrested if a paper bag didn’t cover the bottle. Masked, armed men could break down my door and enter my home night or day and take me out or take me away because, I suppose, they think I am some sort of a combatant in the war on drugs.

The interesting thing is, despite my plea not to be saved from myself, you’re determined to do it anyway because you are obsessed with what you call law and order -what I hear as control and contain. We ask for jobs, you offer us 10,000 more cops. Not to be outdone your Attorney General, who has panic attacks at the mere mention of the word marijuana, called for increased prison time; more private prison space; he decided, based only on his addled notion, that the police need to be unfettered from such inconsequential matters as arbitrary arrests, detention, brutality, and murder.

So, as state governments grapple with pressing matters like drug testing the poor; increasing the rate of executions lest the chemicals expire; to shoot death row criminals because it’s cheaper, unhindered by pesky constitutionality, and trips back and forth to the Supreme Court. So, my dear rulers, I’m not asking for much, just to be left alone to self-regulate me.

 

 Imagine a society where this report was not necessary. 

Just imagine the kind of society where this report was not necessary. But what is done is done.

Let’s now imagine a society where, having acknowledged its wrongs and flaws, actually took the report seriously, and went directly to work with the best of human resources and capital focused on fairness and justice, something like the Marshall Plan. Wow, what would America be like today?

Lastly, imagine such a dark report delivered to small, timid men, whose vision for humanity doesn’t rise beyond the walls and ceilings of their commodious offices; their loftiest dream is date-stamped on a pension, and a job held in trust for them by mysterious lobbyists.

Well, hey, time to get out of bed. Look around, nothing is there to imagine. The smell is that of wounds neglected and the body politic fast headed to mass graves. America chose that option as its destiny.

HBCU has been asked to play at Trump’s Inauguration

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HBCU has been asked to play at the inauguration. The heated argument is whether to reject support for this pres-elect vs.the unique experience of playing at the ceremony. Some say let the band vote.

Will the Black College Band perform at Trump inauguration?

Somebody’s losing sleep over this?! Okay, let’s consider the issue.

1. Does participating benefit or harm the country? No impact.

2. Does it help or hurt the school in any particular way? Neither. Most Americans know nothing of the school or the historical relevance.

3. Does it help or harm the band and players? Yes, and that’s why there are two opposing petitions.
Some say the experience of playing at the event would be invaluable. That’s debatable.

4. Does it help or hurt African-Americans? Yes and with no conditions. We cannot separate the man from the Oval Office. If that were possible, we would not have had the office occupied by White males exclusively for over two centuries.

 

Accepting the invitation, in this case, is an endorsement of a person who spent his time and money, publicly insulting President Barack Obama for eight long years. Daily! To this day, he has not had the very basic human decency to even offer a public apology to the Nation, to President Obama and his family. Where he, Trump, was not present, he and his cohorts overtly or tacitly created an atmosphere of vileness unsurpassed. But like I wrote at my own low point, “Our Atlas Never Shrugged.” BlueGadfly.com .

 
Yes, we watched, worried for his safety. For 8 consecutive years, none of the ogres said a word that could help him. They ganged-up, piling unjust vilification, non-cooperation, and de-legitimization. When that did not calm their racist insecurity, they went even lower, consorting with foreign governments to defeat President Obama’s diplomacy. Protocols, laws, ethical standards could not restrain them. Now they ask us to do what?

So, tell me again about why Trump’s event is a place any African American should be.
Leyland King
Had this been about a lost election, of course. We have always done what’s right. Even with Bush v Gore, we did.

This decision lies solely with the leadership of the college’s president and board of trustees. Not what’s popular or easier.

+Leyland King Well said Mr. King as an African-American mother I would not want my child participating in that foolishness of a charade with Trump to say I like blacks, see I invited a Black band.

America’s Most Dangerous Place For Black Women 

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img_0108 Someone was sufficiently concerned to bring attention to this continuing tragedy: that is, deaths of African-American women who come in contact with United States Criminal Justice System. The caption above says these five citizens died while in custody in the month of July, 2015. In fact, referencing the dates of demise they occurred within just two weeks in July 2015.

I am speaking up for all citizens, even those who would never acknowledge the atrocity and feel that this is necessary for the protection of our morally unblemished population. What hurts and angers me, are two responses, each equally as repulsive. The first is that not one of the subjects had to be incarcerated. Not one! Let’s look closer. Two died as a result of the economic crime of shoplifting. One, Sandra Bland, died for no reason other than activating a traffic turn signal, which she was not even required to do. So it seems that only two of the women might have committed offences where arrests were necessary. But even so, there is this thing called bond that never gets extended to African-Americans. Innocent until proven guilty never applies to us. The second is Americans refusal to see what the world, including the United Nations, see clearly.

On Native-American females dying in the American Criminal Justice system, it is reportedly worse. Their mistreatment and fatalities are just as unconscionable. The deaths in American institutions would be serial killers’ dreams. The horror is hardly given the media coverage deserved. But, more sickening is the justification offered every time the failure to protect those hauled into custody gets brought to public attention through social media, the American Citizens’ twisted logic centres on this: the person must have done something to deserve their death, for example stealing orange juice.

For African-American, male citizens, the most dangerous place to be in America is related to the street. Whether pedestrian or conveyed. Just breathing can get you arrested and if you protest the injustice, as one should, ten more of arms of justice arrive to ensure that citizen dies or have a near death experience. These are not mistakes. It is not the institution. People are doing this. Individuals with names, with or without badges, judges, state attorneys. All are complicit in this human debasement.

Sadly, this is what is. This is not what will be.

 

Don’t Let Trump Make You Tremble

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Glad you posted this article. It is something to be understood and that is why I’m responding thus: Stop with the FFFFing snivelling, timidity!

Of all the African-Americans engaged in communications media, you presented about four professionals who are in fear of losing their jobs. So, they lose their jobs. Get another gig or adjust your own situation to outlast whatever storm you percieve imminent. You should have been saving your money anyway. Do as Andrew Sullivan, Amy Goodman, Malcolm Gladwell did when they discovered that the industry was beginning to crumble. They adapted.

Some of us want things as they are, that has a price. Some of us refuse to believe that the country they are protecting is not standing with them, well what exactly were your expectations? How many times does history have to ‘say again’?

That does not mean that we, like other vulnerable minorities, should not be concerned. That plays right into the hands of racists who despite history telling otherwise, believe that numerical superiority wins every battle. Do you think they’re out to kill you? Damn right, they are. The question now is, how do you respond? No! Learn the term pyrrhic victory. “A Pyrrhic victory is where the underdog knows he will be vanquished but inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way. However, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit”.

So you’re scared of White men entangled in white sheets? Okay, the sheets are easy to see at night and they are flamable.

Afraid of White men with guns menacing your work place as they did recently at the NAACP office and the police did squat? Well, if by now you don’t know where to get a gun and how to use it proficiently, then you are what Donald Trump spent years grabbing at.

Two things you need to get accustomed to:
(1) Identify the real threat. Nope, it is not 62% of the population. It is as multi-racial as we hoped our society to be. Dr Ben Carson, Sherrif Clarke, many of your pastors, and 4% of your own brothers and sisters are among those who want to be rid of you.

(2) Recognize that you are on your own! Very much so. Your history and current events informs such.
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An Open Letter to Our First Female President, Hillary Rodham-Clinton

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Leyland A. King
Sunday, September 25, 2016

Dear Secretary Clinton,
Our country is beset by seemingly intractable problems, every last one created deliberately or inadvertently by ourselves. Our vote long taken for granted and gerry-mandered from us, is now almost meaningless. Thanks to a political class who, feed on largesse of the rich, amble about our public buildings for a few days, creating inconsequential laws and shamelessly engage in theatrics as would make impress a seasoned thespian They then go home where they sleep on the tits of their rich benefactors. For brevity, I must limit myself to three unbecoming occurrences that informed me the integrity of these United States is somewhere among the standing-room only, left-out spectators, all seating pre previously reserved.
When people serve 30 years in the chambers of the House and Senate and have the temerity to stand before the American people and state thus:

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one term president.”
Senator Mitchell McConnell.(R) 2009

Nearly half of our citizens found that to be laudable. Unobstructed, surely not ethical, there began seven years of some of the most ridiculous utterances and behaviors that one can imagine. All on taxpayer-funded time.

When the highest, most manipulated court in the land found that a corporation is a person with First Amendment Rights and ruled in favor of Citizens United, the American people should at least be honored with a receipt for the sale of their votes.

Forty seven lawmakers , in our name, sent a letter to a foreign government supporting that country’s interest; undermining a delicate, time-consuming, United Nations supported, vital treaty; then to publicly salt our wound by inviting a foreign Head of State to address Congress on the issue, without the knowledge or approval of our elected President, Barack Obama. I openly question their judgement, political competence and fundamental loyalty to America. That some of them served in the military is secondary to their allegiance to this land. There was never a hearing on their conduct, never an investigation by any part of our national security services and most egregious of all, not one of the treasonous lot received a letter of censure. That is unforgivable.

Madam Secretary, I have been following you before you became the First Lady. I know of no person of political substance who have been more maligned, more hounded and threatened as yourself and President Obama. May God be with you.

I watched your ten-hour contest with Rep. Harold “Trey’ Gowdy (R ) and cohorts who needed the break you graciously declined. Your loyalty to this country and our party, when you accepted the office of Secretary of State, is exemplary That was when I determined that come fire, flood or blizzard, I will do every little thing that I can, to ensure your safe assent to the Office of President of these United States. You are the best. Kick butt, be resilient as only you can.

May God protect and guide you through these tumultuous times.
Your ardent supporter,
Leyland A. King, MS., CPM