Author Archives: djlwsu

Drone Attacks Have Broad Support: Imagining something else

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WSJ/NBC Poll: Drone Attacks Have Broad Support - Washington Wire - WSJ

It is rather chilling that 66% of the country supports drones strikes.  It is chilling not only because of the seeming willingness to be in perpetual war and the lack of public discourse about the cost and consequence of perpetual war (or the lives lost), but because it is a stark reminder how all lives are not imagined as equal.  Imani Perry got me thinking about imagining or dreaming alternatives this morning.  Imagine if the media focused less on polls and more about educating/informing the public about the destruction of drones.  Imagine if they reported the words of Shahzad Akbar (from article that Scahill quote is from), a Pakistani attorney, who reminded the American public, “Drone victims are not just figures on a piece of paper, they are real people and that’s why it is important to see what happens on the ground when a missile hits a target. We have to see what exactly is happening on the ground, what is happening to the people.” Imagine if polls would take place after watching a video from Jeremy Scahill, who in one speech offered the following:

What is happening to this country right now?” We have become a nation of assassins. We have become a nation that is somehow silent in the face of — or embraces, as polls indicate — the idea that assassination should be one of the centerpieces of US foreign policy. How dangerous is this? It’s a throwback to another era  — an era that I think many Americans thought was behind them. And the most dangerous part of this is the complicity of ordinary people in it.

Imagine if this was part of the conversation; what if there was a daily confrontation with lost lives at the hands of drones.  Tell their stories; report the death and devastation; show imagines of what a drone does and then take a poll.  Maybe I am holding onto those freedom dreams, that if people knew the facts, knew the stories, read “The Guilty Conscience of a Drone Pilot who killed a child,” the polls would be different. The policy would change.  But I don’t know.  But the imagination and the dreams are powerful, so despite my cynicism and frustration, despite my sadness, I cannot but hope, wondering if we will begin to heed the words of Dr. King,

I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” The world must hear this. I pray to God that America will hear this before it is too late, because today we’re fighting a war.

 

 

Polls are one thing but drones are not about polls; they are about morals and values, life and death; they are about people.

Here is the article got me thinking about these questions.

Amid months of discussion on the morality and legality of using drone strikes to target terrorist groups – and a week after President Barack Obama publicly defended his use of drones – a strong majority of Americans said they support such measures.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll out Wednesday found that 66% said they favored the use of unmanned aircraft to kill suspected members of al Qaeda and other terrorists, while only 16% said they were in opposition and 15% said they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

Since Mr. Obama’s inauguration in 2009, more than 300 drone strikes have been conducted in Pakistan, according to the nonpartisan New America Foundation, while the George W. Bush administration conducted fewer than 50 strikes.

via WSJ/NBC Poll: Drone Attacks Have Broad Support – Washington Wire – WSJ.

via WSJ/NBC Poll: Drone Attacks Have Broad Support – Washington Wire – WSJ.

Spectra: Straight Allies, White Anti-Racists, Male Feminists (and Other Labels That Mean Nothing to Me)

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This is a really amazing piece because it reminds us about the limitations of labels, it reminds us about the importance of actions, especially the everyday actions, and it reminds us that community is essential.  Really thoughtful piece.  Spectra writes,

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’d rather experience people–and their politics–through unlikely, awkward, strained, challenging, beautiful relationships built over time. That way, when we do clash or differ, we love each other enough to express the full range of our raw emotions – cry, yell, storm out – and always return to build the deeper, more intimate connections we need to take on the world together, truly united.

When someone fights for me, I want them to do so because they care about me as an individual – or as someone who reminds them of someone else that they care about – not just as some abstract theoretical concept. I’d rather that the “white allies”, the “straight allies”, the “male feminists” of the world do the work to build authentic relationships based on real love and respect, not just politically correct lexicon and rhetoric.

So, despite starting off as an activist who was really excited about the concept of “allies”, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found less use for words and definitions in social justice; labels like feminists, anti-sexists, radicals, allies etc simply don’t mean much to me anymore. Though I certainly see these ideas/concepts as a way of connecting with others initially, ultimately, relationships that last aren’t sustained by what you are to each other, but how you treat each other.

Falling back on words and phrases that are intended to convey some sort of ideological purity won’t ever trump the transformation you’ll experience within yourself (and others) if you truly put yourself out there — if you dare to be vulnerable, admit wrongs, take responsibility for your blind spots, hold your damn self accountable, an not for show, but for real.

So, screw the definitions; let’s experience the ideas and world views through the relationships we build with people. Let’s commit to living in principle, and remain mindful of the core values that help us navigate our lives in the gray. Let’s embrace ambiguity, and its potential for unearthing surprise and disappointment in equal measure, because only through the natural bombardment that arises when we converse with strangers, can we learn more about the world, and about each other.

Read the entire piece at Spectra: Straight Allies, White Anti-Racists, Male Feminists (and Other Labels That Mean Nothing to Me).

Hate Violence Against LGBT Community Is On a Dangerous Rise – COLORLINES

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Hate Violence Against LGBT Community Is On a Dangerous Rise

by Jamilah King, Tuesday, June 4 2013, 1:19 PM EST

It’s been less than a month since the brutal slaying of Mark Carson, an openly gay black man who was shot and killed in New York City’s West Village. Police continue to investigate Carson’s death as a hate crime and have had a suspect in custody since early on in the case, but the murder has become one of the more prominent examples of a frighetening increase in hate crimes targeting people in LGBT communities.

That increase is the focus of a new report on anti-LGBT hate violence released today by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. The report looks specifically at incidents of reported violence that took place in 2012 and found that transgender people of color were among the most impacted communities.

“Though the recent spate of hate violence incidents in New York City has captured the media’s attention, this report demonstrates that severe acts of violence against gay men, transgender people and LGBTQ people of color are, unfortunately, not unique to Manhattan nor to the past month, but rather part of a troubling trend in the United States,” said Chai Jindasurat, NCAVP Coordinator at the New York City Anti- Violence Project.

The report is the most comprehensive look at hate crimes against LGBT communities in the U.S. It draws on data from 15 anti-violence programs in 15 states.

Some of the key findings:

LGBTQ people of color were 1.82 times as likely to experience physical violence compared to white LGBTQ people

Gay men were 1.56 times as likely to require medical attention compared to other survivors reporting.

There were 2,016 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence in 2012.

In 2012, NCAVP documented 25 anti-LGBTQ homicides in the United States, which is the 4th highest yearly total ever recorded by NCAVP.

The 2012 report found that 73.1 percent of all anti-LGBTQ homicide victims in 2012 were people of color. Of the 25 known homicide victims in 2012 whose race/ethnicity was disclosed, 54 percent were Black/African American, 15 percent Latino, 12 percent white and 4 percent Native American.

via Hate Violence Against LGBT Community Is On a Dangerous Rise – COLORLINES.

 

Racial gap in pot busts extends to SF – SFGate

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Racial gap in pot busts extends to SF

Justin Berton

(06-04) 20:58 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — In San Francisco, a city that prides itself on a progressive attitude toward marijuana, authorities have been arresting fewer and fewer people for pot possession. But African Americans are arrested at far higher rates than whites, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report by the American Civil Liberties Union, which analyzed federal arrest data, found that black people in San Francisco were 4.3 times more likely than white people to be arrested on the charge in 2010. The disparity was twice the state rate and slightly higher than the national rate.

The divide in marijuana arrests – which the ACLU attributed to a “staggering racial bias” – persisted even though black and white people have been found to use pot with similar frequency, the report concluded. It questioned the high cost of marijuana enforcement at a time when Americans are increasingly favoring legalization of the drug.

San Francisco Police Department officials did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment on the report.

The numbers varied across the Bay Area: In Marin County African Americans were 4.1 times more likely to be arrested than whites in 2010. In contrast, in Alameda County they were 1.3 times as likely to face arrest for marijuana possession as white people.

Experts on policing and drug enforcement offered a number of theories on the disparity in San Francisco, including that police officers target enforcement in neighborhoods that have high African American populations and high levels of crime, like Bayview-Hunters Point.

As the core African American population diminishes in San Francisco and concentrates in the city’s southeast districts, some experts said, the group can be disproportionately affected by such enforcement.

Continue reading at  Racial gap in pot busts extends to SF – SFGate.

 

Grant Program May Incentivize More Weed Arrests Among Blacks – COLORLINES

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Grant Program May Incentivize More Weed Arrests Among Blacks – COLORLINES:

From Jamilah King,

Black Americans were nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested on charges of marijuana posession in 2010, even though the two groups smoke weed at similar rates, according to new federal data. The American Civil Liberties Union cites the Edward Bryne Justice Assistantship Grant Program as one possible reason for the disparity. The program incentivizes increasing drug arrest numbers by tying the statistics to funding. Law enforcement then concentrates on low-income neighborhoods to keep those numbers up.

More at the Atlantic Wire:

The argument resonantes with criticism of the NYPD’s ‘stop and frisk’ program, which overwhelmingly targets young, black or latino men in the city (and, indeed, demonstrates a racial disparity in arrests for marijuana possession). But as the ACLU and the Times show, the problem of racial bias in arrests for possessing a drug that is, after all, gaining acceptance across the U.S., is a national one. the ACLU found a bias in ‘virtually every county in the country,’ they told the Times,regardless of the proportional population of minorities in that county.

Back in 2010 the NAACP called the racial discrepency in weed arrests a ‘civil rights issue.’ One year later, to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. War on Drugs, author Michelle Alexander told a crowd of 1,000 at Harlem’s Riverside Church back in 2011, ‘The enemy in this war has been racially defined. The drug war, not by accident, has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color.’

Continue reading at Grant Program May Incentivize More Weed Arrests Among Blacks – COLORLINES:

Michael Bloomberg and the Benevolent White Daddy Syndrome | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

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by David J. Leonard

Hypocrisy is nothing new for America’s politicians. It is one of the few postures that remains bipartisan.

This is certainly evident as Michael Bloomberg pushes forward his assault on big sodas alongside his assault on constitutional rights and human dignity with his harmful stop and frisk policy. “For someone who wants to make sure people don’t smoke, waste energy, shoot each other with military-style firearms, or eat a bagel that’s way too big, you don’t express similar urgency when it comes to Black and Latino youth being violated on the streets of New York City,” writes Michael Arceneaux.

Stop and Frisk “has done absolutely nothing to make the city’s streets safer, and instead, fuels the fires of the already tense relationship between people of color and the police? Why focus on all off that when you can walk around telling people what not to eat and drink? Meanwhile, the heads of minority youth are buried into the concrete,” Acreneaux continues.

When defending big soda bans or cigarette concealment Bloomberg consistently notes health and safety, yet as Arceneaux notes, where is the concern for health, safety, dignity, life, and humanity with stop and frisk. Hypocrisy indeed.

Yet, on another level the soda ban and stop and frisk policy operate through the same racist ideologies: white paternalism. In both instances, Bloomberg and others claim discipline and punishment as necessary for the sake of safety, order, and protecting. They both are thought to be “preventative;” they are considered as policies thought to protect the law-abiding from poor choices, from dangerous values, and harmful things. They are considered interventions for bodies of color who obviously need to be controlled by the state.

Bloomberg defends his march on soda by invoking the kids, “I’ve got to defend my children, and yours, and do what’s right to save lives…Obesity kills. There’s no question—it kills…We believe that the judge’s decision was clearly in error, and we believe we will win on appeal.”

Given soda industries targeting of black and Latino youth, and the lack of concern for the turnstile refills at America’s finest restaurants, Bloomberg’s crusade against cola is wrapped up in the logics of race and class. You have to look no further than the exemption of coffee drinks; a massive mocha offers a whopping 360 calories, 19 g of fat, and more than a little bit of sugar. A blended version nets almost 500 calories, yet because it has milk, not to worry, all is supposedly good. The hipsters of Williamsburg have little to worry about as Bloomsberg’s Pepsi police are on the case at 7-11, making sure that sugar + coffee + milk remains the breakfast of (Wall-Street) champions.

Bloomsberg’s class and race-based logic of paternalism and protection, of saving black and brown youth from purported pathologies and dangers isn’t reserved for the soda fountain but also guides his policing policy.

“We are not going to walk away from a strategy that we know saves lives,” noted Mayor Bloomberg. He went on to say, “At the same time, we owe it to New Yorkers to ensure that stops are properly conducted and carried out in a respectful way.”

Scoffing at suggestions that stops should mirror population numbers in the city, he added, “If we stopped people based on census numbers, we would stop many fewer criminals, recover many fewer weapons and allow many more violent crimes to take place. We will not do that. We will not bury our heads in the sand.”

Continue reading at Michael Bloomberg and the Benevolent White Daddy Syndrome | NewBlackMan (in Exile).