Weird: The DOJ Report On Ferguson And The Case For Reparations (By Ta-Nehisi Coates) Tell The Same Story

There's a reason these people are smiling

Here's Eric Holder's Department of Justice report on the Ferguson, Mo. Police Department.

And here's The Case For Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Get ready to pay us back our money,...

Why I Hate Dave Logan & I've Only Just Read His Name

"So many bridges have been burned all at once. It's an awful situation, but if it happened to any one of us, the outcome would be the same."

 - Dave Logan, of the USC Marshall School of Business, on Sony's Amy Pascal possibly losing her job over racist emails

1961 was the year I was born in South Central, Los Angeles. I met my father and mother, as strangers, when I was 13 and 40, respectively, having only intermittent contact with them after that, to which I blame respectability politics. I can’t remember how many foster homes (some nice, some not) I was “raised” in. I took hellish beatings in them all.

Except for visits to a foster home by the “insurance man,” who my Great Migration “parents” of the time treated like a God, my first interactions with whites came about because it was discovered I was “smart.” By testing well in the 9th grade, I had won the honor, on my first day, of being seated between two white troublemakers the teacher wanted separated. Once I was introduced to the class, and between them, their exchange went like this:

“Hey, Marty, you like niggers?”

“Yeah, I think everyone should own one.”

I immediately got a bad reputation for using my desk - the kind with the chair attached - to bash both of their heads in. I didn’t care. I cared even less when we were punished “equally,” with them being sent home while I was made to wait in detention, until the day was over, and the school bus I caught at 6:30 AM returned we blacks to neighborhoods defined by gun fire.

The first time I was invited to a white person’s house, unexpectedly, my friend’s mother took one look at me, clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “Excellent: we’re having fried chicken for dinner!” My friend, mortified, hustled me to his bedroom, where I sat alone, surrounded by posters of his white heroes, as the two of them apparently discussed proper comportment.

  “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.”

 - President Barack Obama, on what awaits the dark and successful

That friend, and two of his white friends I later met, went on to be cops. When we were kids, we’d sit in a soda shop (they bought mine) and, to my disgust, the three soon-to-be “officers” would make fun of the Mexicans working in the kitchen. They said they were only playing. Meanwhile, I couldn’t go to the same parties they did, couldn’t get the jobs they did, easily, and wandered the streets looking for shelter. One of the whites, the most sociopathic of the three - he beat up his girlfriend, and kept knives and “Japanese Throwing Stars” for the walls he occasionally punched holes into, when emphasizing a point - volunteered to work South Central, Los Angeles upon graduation. I think about him a lot when I consider, of my 20 black running buddies there, 16 are already dead. In 1979 I was encouraged by white parents to join the military as an out.

  “We, as a nation, have failed. It’s as simple as that. We have failed.”

 - Attorney General Eric Holder, on police abuses

I didn’t join the Navy to escape the ghetto, really, but because they had a drafting program, and I was artistically inclined. They cancelled the program as soon as I graduated the racially-fraught ordeal of boot camp, and when they asked me what I wanted to do then, I told them to send me back to South Central. “Not going to happen,” I was told, “you signed the paper - we own you.” I told them to put me on the next ship leaving the States.

Out to sea, I served under a redneck who also liked to throw knives, and - since he signed my progress reports - made it one of my jobs to return them. He, and another white guy who never rose above E-1, knew more about the ship than the Captain. Together, they smuggled drugs onboard at every port, eventually resulting in an investigation into why so many sailors were jumping over-board (myself included) and hoping it wasn’t merely that we were one of the first crews forced to endure an extended deployment of 9 months at sea, during the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

I spent the last 8 months of my enlistment in the brig, having developed the nasty habit of clocking officers, in an unsuccessful bid to cancel my enlistment. I spent most of that time in solitary confinement, next to an extremely violent black guy named “Green,” who required six guards to escort him to the showers. I admired him, and he admired my singing voice, requesting I serenade him to sleep each night with songs I made up on the spot. It was a talent I hardly knew I had.

  "I was socialized well into adulthood. I was in the Navy nine years. I was formed before I started to do this. So, I think people that grow up their whole lives and were practicing their whole lives in the basement are different. Also, I was a severe stutterer until I was nearly 30,…I wasn't socialized to where that was how I validated myself.”

 - Bill Withers, interviewed in Rolling Stone, after his nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 I was released on June 6th, 1983 and not long afterwards, found myself back as one of the few black guys in San Francisco’s fabled "Mabuhay Gardens,” attending a Flipper show. Their drummer, noticing my alienation, graciously bought me a beer and, later, encouraged me to keep writing songs. I did, and - while never getting rich - would eventually go on to be in a few of San Francisco’s most iconic bands.

When I finally went solo in the early 90s, wholly rejecting respectability politics as “The Crack Emcee,” my work was first positively reviewed by the LA Weekly. Later, the writer said he’d gotten some push-back for covering me favorably, and was told if he ever did again, he’d be restricted from new releases by the record company. He apologized if he’d hurt my prospects, but, as a black man, he was also afraid for his own:

Last I’d heard, that writer - a "smart" and talented guy - was sleeping in his car.

  ”White Americans of modest means are more likely to have inherited something, in the form of housing wealth or useful professional connections, than the descendants of slaves,…

…If everyone’s wages were growing, and if everyone felt secure enough in their jobs to quit every now and again in search of better opportunities elsewhere, I doubt that we’d be talking quite so much about white privilege,…”

BTW, it was Sony that was so turned off by the idea of helping me, or anyone who understood the implications of my work.

But, as I sit here in a homeless shelter, remembering and writing this - I finally am happy to say - that feeling is now so totally mutual,….
 

Eric Holder Is The Most Honest AG America's Ever Had

"Some people can kiss my ass."

You Got It

"I started America's racism? Or I'm even the one continuing it? Riiiight,...." 

Blacks are being tickled by every one of these articles on “Holder's Legacy of Racial Politics,” seeing how A) they're written by whites, implying whites are innocent and it's the AG who's been decisive, and B) blacks never see an article, written by whites, on "White's Legacy Of Racial Politics" because whites won't talk about what they do or have done. What makes it a laugh riot is knowing some idiots even believe what whites write on race. 

It's a great gig, if you can get it. 

White supremacy, I mean,...

 

Awww: It's "The Worst Of Eric Holder" Telling The Truth

 If the first black Attorney General had lied - as whites do - they, too, would've called him "The best"....

 

America's Best Attorney General Ever Is Stepping Down

His love for blacks and the poor is unquestioned

Well, this should make the white supremacists happy - The Race Man who first said America was "a nation of cowards" (and probably the only man who could've quelled Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown) is outta here:

”Eric Holder Jr., the nation's first black U.S. attorney general, is preparing to announce his resignation Thursday after a tumultuous tenure marked by civil rights advances, national security threats, reforms to the criminal justice system and five and a half years of fights with Republicans in Congress.

Holder most wants to be remembered for his record on civil rights: refusing to defend a law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman; suing North Carolina and Texas over voting restrictions that disproportionately affect minorities and the elderly; launching 20 investigations of abuses by local police departments; and using his bully pulpit to lobby Congress to reduce prison sentences for non-violent drug crimes. Many of those sentences disproportionately hurt minority communities.”

Here's hoping he finds someone, even more determined, to finish what he started,....

 

The NRO's Case Against Eric Holder's Civil Rights Suit

The Ferguson Police Dept. Doesn't Think They're Protecting & Serving Human Beings

Calling blacks animals doesn't show a "racial overtone" - that's what racists have always been known to do and think:

"To constitute a civil-rights crime, it is not nearly enough for a violent act to have the “racial overtones” assorted agitators and commentators choosing to frame the case in racial terms contend it does.

The Police Officer In Question, Darren Wilson, Has Had Immediate KKK Support

A country with a 400-year record of avoiding it's racist past and historic inclinations will be easy to prove - with the KKK's help.

To justify a federal investigation, the Justice Department must have a rational basis to believe it could prove these invidious and evil purposes beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Ferguson Police Dept. Has Been Killing And Threatening Innocents Forever

It's great that some whites are "colorblind" - they can't see what's coming.

That requires compelling evidence, not a farfetched social-justice narrative."

Eric Holder Is In Missouri For Michael Brown: Is It Time For "A Nation Of Cowards" To Finally Learn It's Limits?

How scared - of a single unarmed black man - do armed white males have to be to behave like this?

Whites are sending some pretty clear signals they have no idea what's going on. Nothing they're trying is working. Except for killing people. 

Eric Holder is a classic "Race Man"

And now the Attorney General who said, racially, this is "a nation of cowards" is there - and he's not about to let black people down:

"The eyes of the nation and the world are watching Ferguson right now. The world is watching because the issues raised by the shooting of Michael Brown predate this incident. This is something that has a history to it, and the history simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Ferguson."

This is indeed "something with some history to it," and that history is exactly what whites desperately want to avoid, seeing America's history of slavery, etc., as their ancestors once saw uncharted waters:

That way be dragons,...

Sarah Got Drunk & Said A Black President Can't Holder

Sarah Palin's been irrelevant for a while now but, today - maybe after nipping a little too much at the cooking sherry - she went on (what seemed to be) such a tipsy tirade against the president, Attorney General Eric Holder, and their perception of racism in America, TMR's re-setting her 15 Minutes Of Fame Clock.

It's quite the sight, this woman - who's shown no insight or aptitude on the subject of race - lecturing two black men that they are, not just wrong but, trying to be deceptive by bringing it up. And naturally, she'd rather pivot to impeachment, because (even she has to know) we're aware there's no substance to her claim of understanding their motivations, making her whole rap a sieve.

Only the most ignorant of whites will get sucked into it,...

Eric Holder On The Facts Whites Ignore (Defining Truth)

Whites imagine they can still "negotiate" how 400 years of violent American history are sold.

When whites have only just over 3 decades, we can't trust it: 

“You know, people talking about taking their country back. There's a certain racial component to this for some people. I don't think this is the thing that is a main driver, but for some there's a racial animus.”

Think, also, before you say there's no racial animus.

Americans "taking their country back" can be a touchy subject, y'know,...

Not Just Black Super Men (But Super Super-Duper Men)

"The story’s not over yet. Aides to both men told me their priorities are converging as Obama and Holder look to their legacies, attacking the unfinished business of racial justice,…"

Pakistan's Female Prez Didn't Make It's Sexism Go Away

"Sure, Iraq is important but, you seem concerned about events closer to home."

Talking race with whites can feel like conversing with a child: 

  “Crack,



Look at blacks who came to the US from the Caribbean. They came to the Caribbean as slaves much the same as those who came to the US,....



Colin Powell (Jamaican parents), Eric Holder (Barbadan ancestry) are two who come to mind,...



Yet they succeeded pretty well.



How come?



John Henry”

Were Colin Powell and Eric Holder separated from the Civil Rights Movement?

Of course, if whites read more than that one line from MLK's "Dream" speech, they'd already understand how a few blacks succeed in a racist environment while others don't. From Amiri Baraka's 1962 essay “Tokenism: 300 Years for Five Cents”: 

  “There are almost 20,000,000 Negroes in the United States. One of these 20 million has been given a two-dollar raise and promoted to a clerical job that my two-year-old daughter could probably work out without too much trouble. And we are told that this act is symbolic of the ‘gigantic strides the Negro has taken since slavery…."

It's not over simply because laws were made to stop whites from saying "Nigger" in public.

At this rate, considering white's ignorance, it's going to be a long time before they understand where this movement is going,…

 

White Racism Doesn't Have To Look Like This To Be Bad

Shoot, just finding out whites are still at it - in any form - can wreck a day or more:

  "Subtle racism can be more harmful than the occasional outburst: 

Attorney General Eric Holder Holder spoke about the different forms of racism during a commencement address Saturday at historically black Morgan State University in Baltimore."

Also - some great and honorable words out of Nevada:

  "I have a great deal of respect for the Washoe Tribe. And if their cultural committee is unhappy with naming the cove for Mark Twain, I'm not going to fight them. We need to show sensitivity to the tribe."

- Robert Stewart, of The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names, getting it exactly right

 

A White GOP Senator From Wisconsin (!) Steps UP!!!

Play that funky music, white boy!

I was almost ready to think whites, Wisconsin, and Republicans were lost - Rand Paul, pay attention - and not to Rick Perry's "nigger stone":

During a filibuster-style radio interview in Milwaukee Friday, senior Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) charged that the State of Texas as a whole had a tendency to discriminate against minority voters and should be placed back under Holder Justice Department supervision thanks to his proposed legislation.

After the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act—a policy that held a number of southern states like Texas and other jurisdictions structurally discriminatory toward minorities until proven otherwise—Rep. Sensenbrenner vowed to revive the law.

I never would've guessed Uncle Tom was a doctor. 

 BTW, It should be noted who HASN'T said anything of the kind,…