Speaking His Truth

The following is an excerpt from a powerful Facebook Post that was featured in USA Today (his whole story is worth reading and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/brian.crooks/posts/10103901923530909?pnref=story-

~~~~~~~~~

I could go on and on and on about this. I could tell you about the guy who wanted to buy his guitar from someone who “actually knew what a guitar was” when I worked at guitar center. At that point, I had a Gibson Les Paul at my house and an Ibanez acoustic, plus a Warwick fretless bass. I could tell you about the coworker who thought it was funny to adopt a stereotypical Black accent to apologize that we weren't going to have fried chicken and cornbread at our company Christmas party. I could tell you about the time I gave my floor mate a haircut freshman year and he “thanked” me by saying he'd let a negro cut his hair any day of the week. I could tell you about leaving a bar heartbroken and fighting tears when the Trayvon Martin verdict came out only to see a couple middle-aged White guys high-fiving and saying he “got what he deserved” right outside. These are only a handful of the experiences I've had in my 31 years.

I've never had a Black boss. I played football from middle school through senior year of high school and only had one Black coach in that whole time. Not just head coaches, I'm talking about assistants and position coaches. I've had two Black teachers in my entire life. One was for my Harlem Renaissance class, and one was for my sign language class. I've never been to a Black doctor, or a Black dentist. I've never been pulled over by a Black police officer. What I'm trying to explain is that, in 31 years, I've seen three Black people in a position of authority. Think about what that does to the psyche of a growing young man. I remember being excited just a few years ago when we started to see Black people in commercials without there being gospel or hip hop music in the background (remember that McDonald's commercial where the little kid was pop-locking with the chicken McNuggets?).

Before you say it, I don't want to hear that you're “sorry I had these experiences.” Because it's not just me. It's not like I'm some kind of magnet for all of the racists in America and I'm some weird anomaly. This is what it means to be Black in America. I appreciate that you're sorry for me, but I'm not seeking your sorrow. I'm seeking your understanding. I just want you to understand that this is real. We're not exaggerating it, and we're not making it up. White people often say that we make everything about race. That's because, for us, damn near everything IS about race. It's always been that way. When I have a great phone interview, but go for my in-person interview only to be told that the position has been filled, how am I supposed to know that's not just because they expected a White Iowa graduate to show up for the interview? When I have an especially-attentive employee keep checking in with me at the mall, how am I supposed to know they're shooting for employee of the month, not watching me to make sure I'm not stealing? What do you think it's like when someone says “You don't sound Black at all” when I have a phone conversation with them and then meet them in person? What do you think it's like seeing Confederate flags on cars and flag poles in northern states, only to have someone tell me I'm being too sensitive for not liking it?

When we say “Black Lives Matter,” understand what that actually means. We aren't saying that ONLY Black lives matter. We're saying “Black lives matter TOO.” For the entirety of the history of this country, Black lives have not mattered. At a minimum, they haven't mattered nearly as much as White lives. If a Black person kills another Black person, and we have it on tape, the killer goes to jail. If a White police officer kills a Black person and we have it on tape, the entire judicial system steps up to make sure that officer doesn't go to jail. It doesn't matter whether the Black person was holding a toy gun in a Walmart, or whether the Black person was a 12-year-old kid playing with a BB gun in an empty park. The police union steps up to say the officer was fearing for his life, just worried about trying to make it home that night. IF a grand jury is convened, the prosecutor will present a purposely-weak case to make sure no indictment is reached. IF, by some miracle, an indictment is handed down, no jury is actually going to convict that officer. That's what we mean when we say Black Lives Matter. I can only speak for myself, but I have no reason to believe that the officers in Minnesota or Baton Rouge will ever see the inside of a jail cell. If we can have video evidence that an officer pulled up, jumped out of his car, shot a 12-year-old to death less than 2 seconds after arriving on the scene, administered no first aid, tackled and hand cuffed the boy's sister when she arrived on the scene, and then falsified a police report to say that the boy pointed a gun at him and that he only shot when the boy refused several orders to drop his weapon and STILL not get an indictment, why should we think that an officer who shoots a Black man who had a gun in his pocket, or a Black man who had a concealed weapon on him, will face a trial? If a White man sees a 14-year-old Black boy in his neighborhood, follows him in his car, ignores orders not to engage him, then gets into a fight with him and shoots him in the chest and is found not guilty, why should we expect ANYBODY to go to jail for killing us? It's just not realistic. It's a fairy tale. All you have to do is say you were afraid, and you get a book deal and a job as a commentator on FOX News every time this kind of thing happens again.

That is why Black people are in such pain right now. The deaths are bad enough. But having the feeling that nobody will ever actually be held accountable for the deaths is so much worse. And then watching as the police union, the media, and conservative politicians team up to imagine scenarios where the officer did nothing wrong, and then tell those of us who are in pain that our pain is wrong, unjustified, and all in our heads just serves to twist the knife.

If you read all this, I really, really want to say thank you. I know it was a lot to get through. But this is real. This is me. This is what my life is and has been. And I'm not alone.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/07/12/being-black-iowa-man-shares-experience-viral-essay/87005918/

Larry, the Cat

An excerpt from USA Today -

As Cameron moves out, the cat stays put at 10 Downing Street
By Ryan W. Miller

With the United Kingdom voting to leave the EU and in turn electing a new prime minister, countless questions around the country’s future have arisen in the recent weeks. One thing is not up for debate, though – Larry, the Chief Mouser of 10 Downing Street, will keep his London residence during the leadership change.




http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/12/cameron-moves-out-cat-stays-put-10-downing-street/86998646/

What Now?

Excerpts from The Huffington Post -

What Should We Teach Them Now?

By John Silvanus Wilson Jr. 

President, Morehouse College

In 1984, my brother and I were fortunate enough to survive an encounter with the police. It occurred near the beginning of a drive from Princeton, New Jersey to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I was completing my doctorate at Harvard University. I was joined by my fiancé, who was completing her doctorate at MIT, my brother, who was completing his at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his wife, who was about to enter medical school.

When two Princeton officers flashed us to a halt, my brother and I knew what to do, based on “the talk” our parents had given us years before. We were taught to comply with all orders issued by the police and respectfully reply to any questions they may ask. By doing so, we were told that the encounter would probably have a safe and desirable outcome.

Accordingly, we slowly got out of the front seats with our empty hands in clear view, we placed them on the hood of the car, and we spread our legs, all as sternly instructed. As we were patted down by one officer, the other kept his hand on his gun.

After I respectfully asked the officer why he stopped us, my brother and I worked hard to remain poised once he answered, “You have out-of-state plates, you don’t look like you live here, and you have a car full of belongings!”

I say we survived the police encounter because “the talk” worked for us. We respectfully did as we were told, we quietly absorbed the undeserved humiliation, and we eventually drove away.

~~~~~~~~~~

At Morehouse College, we celebrated our fourth Rhodes Scholar this past spring. But I worry that some police officers will see his tall, lean, dark body and think of him as a menace, rather than a mensch. I worry that his Rhodes Scholarship will no more work for him, than our prestigious graduate pursuits worked for us on that small, dark road in Princeton back in 1984. Being in mortal danger for no other reason than because we are black men is a disgusting feature of an America that we must remain determined to change.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-silvanus-wilson-jr/what-do-we-teach-them-now_b_10905976.html

Acknowledgment Comes First

Excerpts from The Atlantic -

The Near Certainty of Anti-Police Violence

By ignoring illegitimate policing, America has also failed to address the danger this illegitimacy poses to those who must do the policing. 
By TA-NEHISI COATES

To understand the lack of police legitimacy in black communities, consider the contempt in which most white Americans hold O.J. Simpson. Consider their feelings toward the judge and jury in the case. And then consider that this is approximately how black people have felt every few months for generations. It’s not just that the belief that Officer Timothy Loehmann got away with murdering a 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it is the reality that police officers have been getting away with murdering black people since the advent of American policing. The injustice compounds, congeals until there is an almost tangible sense of dread and grievance that compels a community to understand the police as objects of fear, not respect.

~~~~~~~~~~

There is no short-cut out. Sanctimonious cries of nonviolence will not help. “Retraining” can only do so much. Until we move to the broader question of policy, we can expect to see Walter Scotts and Freddie Grays with some regularity. And the extent to which we are tolerant of the possibility of more Walter Scotts and Freddie Grays is the extent to which we are tolerant of the possibility of more Micah Xavier Johnsons.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/the-near-certainty-of-anti-police-violence/490541/

$39 Flights

JetBlue Is Offering $39 Flights In A 2-Day Flash Sale

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jetblue-flash-sale_us_5784ff1ae4b0ed2111d78b56

The Lone Man Building a Cathedral By Hand

Toothpick Talent

An excerpt from Atlas Obscura -

The Folsom Prisoner Who Built Functional Miniature Carnivals Out of Toothpicks

It was the best way for William Jennings-Bryan Burke to kill time during his 23 years in prison.
By Lauren Young

Sometime around 1940, the convicted burglar turned a basement near the warden’s office into his artistic domain. Relying on his memories and imagination, he constructed three expansive carnivals containing scaled iterations of Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, airplane rides, merry-go-rounds, and penny arcades—all made out of toothpicks.

Former convict Billy Burke had a unique hobby during his time at Folsom Prison.
[All photos: John Burke/The Toothpick Carnival]

“For a time toothpicks had been designated contraband in prison, precisely because I was using so many of them and the guards weren’t sure of what I had in mind,” Burke told Nan Nichols Sharrer, author of Escape From Folsom Prison: The True Story of William Jennings Bryan Burke. “But soon the warden would bring me toothpicks in his pockets.”

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-folsom-prisoner-who-built-functional-miniature-carnivals-out-of-toothpicks

Warnings

As a person living in a foreign land, we're used to getting travel advisories from the US State Department about potential threats as we travel abroad.  A few days ago, the island nation of the Bahamas warned their people who might be visiting the US about the potential dangers of being in our land.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/07/the-bahamas-issues-travel-advisory-to-its-young-men-about-coming-to-u-s/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

As we Americans wear the robe of righteousness and all-knowing sense of superiority when it comes to human rights, we then pretend to be shocked when the reality of the injustices that are present that so many of us face every day, is shown in living color, for the world to see.

You may be shocked.

Those of us who live in brown and black skin are not.

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

A Muted View

Where's the NRA?

An excerpt from Salon -

NRA’s offensive hypocrisy: When will the organization demand justice for black gun owners shot by police?

Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were shot while carrying guns, but the NRA isn't stepping up to defend them  By AMANDA MARCOTTE

Guns are legal in this country. Louisiana is an open carry state. Minnesota allows concealed carry. Police officers in these states know full well that people have a legal right to carry. They have, according to conservatives themselves, no reason to believe that a man with a gun is a bad guy. Why, he could very well be one of those good guys with a gun, at the ready to stop crime, that we keep hearing about from conservatives.

Which brings up a critical question: Where is the gun rights lobby?

Here are two American citizens that were killed while doing what the NRA claims is a constitutional right. Surely this must be a gross injustice in the eyes of the NRA! Surely they will be demanding action, petitioning congressmen, demanding the Department of Justice to step forward and make sure that every American has a right to arm themselves without fear of being gunned down by the police! Right?

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/07/nras_offensive_hypocrisy_when_will_the_organization_demand_justice_for_black_gun_owners_shot_by_police/?source=newsletter

The 2nd Amendment

An excerpt from the Root -

The 2nd Amendment Is So White: What the Past 24 Hours Have Taught Me About Black People’s Right to Bear Arms

Black America yet again bears witness to state-sanctioned violence at the hands of trigger-happy rogue cops—one in Louisiana, a state that has open-carry laws, and the other in Minnesota, where the victim had a permit to conceal and carry firearms.  BY PRESTON MITCHUM


In less than 24 hours, two black men have been killed by police officers even though the Second Amendment indicates that they should have been protected. Black America yet again bears witness to state-sanctioned violence at the hands of trigger-happy rogue cops—one in Louisiana, a state that has open-carry laws, and the other in Minnesota, where the victim had a permit to conceal and carry firearms. The truth, however, is that the Second Amendment (and subsequent open-carry laws) does not apply to black people in America.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/07/the-2nd-amendment-is-so-white-what-the-past-24-hours-have-taught-me-about-black-peoples-right-to-bear-arms/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

The Pain is Real

The Raw Videos That Have Sparked Outrage Over Police Treatment of Blacks
By DAMIEN CAVE and ROCHELLE OLIVER

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/us/police-videos-race.html

Did We Learn Anything?

An excerpt from The Atlantic -

Is America Repeating the Mistakes of 1968?
The Kerner Report confronted a tense nation with data about structural racism throughout the country and made recommendations to solve the problem. But America looked away.
By JULIAN E. ZELIZER

Today, America has a president who understands the urgent need to address the problems of institutional racism that have been broadcast to the entire world through smartphones and exposés of a racialized criminal-justice system. But this conflict is taking shape right in the middle of a heated election season—one that includes a candidate who has made draconian proposals for national security and who appeals to the “Silent Majority.” Following the events in Dallas, Donald Trump released a statement that read: “We must restore law and order. We must restore the confidence of our people to be safe and secure in their homes and on the street.”

***

This is not the first time this has happened. When questions over race and policing were front and center in a national debate in 1968, the federal government failed to take the steps necessary to make any changes. The government understood how institutional racism was playing out in the cities and how they exploded into violence, but the electorate instead was seduced by Richard Nixon’s calls for law and order, as well as an urban crackdown, leaving the problems of institutional racism untouched. Rather than deal with the way that racism was inscribed into American institutions, including the criminal-justice system, the government focused on building a massive carceral state, militarizing police forces, criminalizing small offenses, and living through repeated moments of racial conflict exploding into violence.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/is-america-repeating-the-mistakes-of-1968/490568/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-070816

Who Matters?

An excerpt from Rolling Stone -

After Dallas, We Don't Need to Say 'Blue Lives Matter'
We already know whose lives matter in America
By Natasha Lennard

Do we need to assert that Blue Lives Matter? In the wake of the killing of five Dallas police officers Thursday, it might seem so. President Obama called the shooting "vicious, calculated and despicable." The New York Post proclaimed "Civil War" on its cover. In the same week when thousands of us took to the streets to once again insist that Black Lives Matter, events in Dallas will force a number of false equivalences to be drawn. First among them is that if we say Black Lives Matter, we must say in the same breath Blue Lives Matter.

I won't say Blue Lives Matter, because it does not need to be said. We know this because the death of five officers this week provoked an immediate response from the president, as did the assassination of two NYPD officers in 2014. That's what mattering looks like. While the president’s remarks earlier in the week on the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were moving, dozens of unarmed black men killed by cop go without presidential comment. For instance, U.S. police killed more than 100 unarmed black men last year alone. The fact that there are too many such killings for Obama to speak to individually? That's what not mattering looks like in a society.

There was never any doubt about the mattering of cops' lives in this country. To say Blue Lives Matter is to falsely assert that the cops' lives are undervalued and systematically discarded. They are not — no life should be — and the shootings in Dallas do not change that fact.

Five police deaths provoke cries of "Civil War," but hundreds of black deaths are just the "tragic" normal.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/after-dallas-we-dont-need-to-say-blue-lives-matter-20160708#ixzz4DvpeqkwQ
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Explaining the Pain

Excerpts from the New York Times -

Death in Black and White
By Michael Eric Dyson

Like you, we don’t all think the same, feel the same, love, learn, live or even die the same.

But there’s one thing most of us agree on: We don’t want cops to be executed at a peaceful protest. We also don’t want cops to kill us without fear that they will ever face a jury, much less go to jail, even as the world watches our death on a homemade video recording. This is a difficult point to make as a racial crisis flares around us.

~~~~~~~~~~

We all can see the same videos. But you insist that the camera doesn’t tell the whole story. Of course you’re right, but you don’t really want to see or hear that story.

At birth, you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead when the encounter is over.

Those binoculars are also stories, bad stories, biased stories, harmful stories, about how black people are lazy, or dumb, or slick, or immoral, people who can’t be helped by the best schools or even God himself. These beliefs don’t make it into contemporary books, or into most classrooms. But they are passed down, informally, from one white mind to the next.

The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know. Your knowledge of black life, of the hardships we face, yes, those we sometimes create, those we most often endure, don’t concern you much. You think we have been handed everything because we have fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it — all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace — should be yours first, and foremost, and if there’s anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully.

So you demand the Supreme Court give you back what was taken from you: more space in college classrooms that you dominate; better access to jobs in fire departments and police forces that you control. All the while your resentment builds, and your slow hate gathers steam. Your whiteness has become a burden too heavy for you to carry, so you outsource it to a vile political figure who amplifies your most detestable private thoughts.

Whiteness is blindness. It is the wish not to see what it will not know.
If you do not know us, you also refuse to hear us because you do not believe what we say. You have decided that enough is enough. If the cops must kill us for no good reason, then so be it because most of us are guilty anyway. If the black person that they kill turns out to be innocent, it is an acceptable death, a sacrificial one.

Terror was visited on Dallas Thursday night. Unspeakable terror. We are not strangers to terror. You make us afraid to walk the streets, for at any moment, a blue-clad officer with a gun could swoop down on us to snatch our lives from us and say that it was because we were selling cigarettes, or compact discs, or breathing too much for your comfort, or speaking too abrasively for your taste. Or running, or standing still, or talking back, or being silent, or doing as you say, or not doing as you say fast enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/what-white-america-fails-to-see.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&src=me&WT.nav=MostEmailed&_r=0

Play on Words: Meet Nigeria’s Scrabble King

A Special Museum

An excerpt from the Associated Press -

'Black girl magic' on display at The Colored Girls Museum

By ERRIN HAINES WHACK

Nestled in Philadelphia's historic Germantown neighborhood, the Victorian facade of The Colored Girls Museum beckons visitors past its gate, up the flower-lined path and onto the inviting wraparound porch.

Inside, objects ranging from quilts to a bag of black-eyed peas honor the culture and experiences of what museum founder and artist Vashti Dubois calls "everyday black girls."

"This museum is a celebration of the ordinary, extraordinary colored girl," said Dubois. Referring to the house as a living thing, she adds: "She's speaking to the girl in us."

The 127-year-old home with high, earth-toned walls is filled with art, artifacts and treasures that take visitors on a communal journey of loss, joy, healing and memory.

~~~~~~~~~~

If You Go...

THE COLORED GIRLS MUSEUM: 4613 Newhall St., Philadelphia, http://www.thecoloredgirlsmuseum.com . Open Sundays noon-4 p.m. and by appointment. Suggested $10 donation. On July 9, the museum hosts its first pop-up festival at the Philadelphia Fringe Arts Center, a community dance party with music, artists and vendors in celebration of "black girl magic," a cultural catchphrase that has become a popular social media hashtag. This fall, the museum presents its first exhibit, "A Good Night's Sleep" at the center's Fringe Festival.

http://bigstory.ap.org/b1f17df03dfb40d0a3a5526398c4ea38

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rule - Laboratories of Democracy (HBO)

Cookout Music Anyone?

From The Root -

The 10 Greatest Cookout Songs of All Time

My favorite: Number 8

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/07/the-10-greatest-cookout-songs-of-all-time/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26