"When You Strike a Woman you strike a rock"
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
Yes, I'm writing about Loretta Lynch—again.
And I'm gonna keep on writing about her, and signing petitions, and making phone calls to the Senate (The Capitol switchboard number is (202) 224-3121). Every day that passes we learn of new atrocities taking place against members of our community, and the god-damned vicious petty demagogues who sit on their larded behinds in seats paid for by our tax dollars refuse to fill one of the most important cabinet positions in this nation. They got no shame.
‘Wathint' Abafazi, Wathint' Imbokodo'
(you strike the women, you strike the rock)
Those are the words used by the Federation of South African women when they marched 20,000 strong in 1956 protesting pass laws. These words were echoed in the outcry of women in North Carolina recently...angry about the continued delay in confirming their sister North Carolinian to become Attorney General of the United States.
Reverend Barber has spoken out in an op-ed:
Fear, not racism, at root of delay on Lynch nomination, in which he concluded
While the Senate fiddles its chorus of hate and division, many segments of our nation are burning. Relations between people of color and the broken “justice” systems in our cities are strained. Thoughtful Justice Department guidance about fixing these dysfunctional systems needs strong, sensible and sober leadership now.
I don’t believe it’s Lynch’s color that has led Burr and Tillis to oppose her for the position, but rather their fear of her character, courage and commitment to enforce the law and Constitution that have been shaped by her upbringing in the crucible civil rights struggle. They have both acknowledged that she is highly qualified and that she would enforce the law. Yet they have also both passed and supported voter suppression laws and positions on civil rights as it relates to immigrants, LGBT people and women that are regressive and currently facing serious legal scrutiny.
I believe they are afraid of an attorney general who will enforce the Constitution to its fullest and not turn a blind eye to the law or blatant discrimination. And in this sense, their opposition to her is about race. It is the attorney general who has the ability to address systemic inequality, which includes racism, sexism, classicism, homophobia, immigration fearmongering or any other “ism” that violates the right of all citizens to equal protection under the law guaranteed by our constitution.
Which is why the delay in the Senate is a shame – for Lynch, for the Department of Justice, for North Carolina and for our nation. Her story personifies the success those in our communities can see when we create opportunity instead of division. When Burr and Tillis return to the Senate after recess, they should lead with a higher moral conviction and confirm their fellow North Carolinian to be the next attorney general.
The news media, and major blogs haven't been ignoring this. The bullshit Republican promises made that this would be settled as soon as their eminences got back from Easter break have been broken.
Here's a sampling:
Loretta Lynch AG nomination drags on, leaving her supporters to question why
'I knew we had a fight on our hands'
Hundreds of miles from Washington, longtime residents of Durham, North Carolina, were beaming with pride. Lynch's family moved to the city when she was a child. Her parents, married for 60 years, still live there. They watched the announcement on television.
"That was encouraging but I knew then that we had a fight on our hands," said Lynch's father, the Rev. Lorenzo Lynch. "I've been in politics most of my life. I know that nothing is certain, and I know that nothing is easy."
Lorenzo Lynch, 82, is a retired Baptist preacher and was active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He ran, unsuccessfully, for mayor of Durham in 1973. For the next round of his daughter's "fight," he traveled to Washington in late January to attend his daughter's confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee.
"I heard a lot at that hearing that I've heard since childhood. That is the presupposition of the mindset," Lorenzo Lynch said. "The dual system or the dual treatment."
When asked to provide specific examples, Lorenzo Lynch deferred to the state branch of the NAACP and E. Lavonia Allison, a Durham activist who has known Loretta Lynch since the family moved to Durham. "I don't want to think about the epidermis, but some people are thinking that way," Allison said, suggesting that Lynch's confirmation vote has been delayed because Lynch is African-American.
"When it has taken so long, when it has been so different from any other person who has been nominated ... how else can we interpret that it is so different?" Allison said.
Loretta Lynch Now Has All the GOP Votes She Needs—but She’s Still No Closer to Being Confirmed
Lawmakers return to Washington this week following a two-week spring break. Loretta Lynch, meanwhile, remains stuck in procedural purgatory with little to suggest that the partisan fighting that has trapped her there will end anytime soon.
It has now been more than five months since President Obama formally tapped Lynch to replace U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder atop the Department of Justice, and more than one month since the Judiciary Committee finally got around to officially signing off on her nomination. Despite that extended delay—which has now lasted longer than the combined time the previous eight nominees for the job had to wait for confirmation—Senate Republicans have made it clear that they won’t give Lynch a vote until the chamber settles an unrelated, and potentially unending, fight over abortion funding in a human trafficking bill currently stalled in the upper chamber.
Disappearing Excellence: 'Massive Resistance' Is Preventing Loretta Lynch's Attorney General Confirmation
Kentucky was not an accidental choice by Toni Morrison for the horrific origin of her Nobel-prize winning classic, Beloved. Sweet Home, the Kentucky plantation in Morrison's story, represents America and how the depravity of American slavery required destroying any sign of excellence among Africans who lived there.
Fast forward more than 100 years from Morrison's novel: the United States Senate, still in the first days of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell's leadership, has chosen to advance this shameful legacy of ignoring black excellence by delaying the confirmation of Loretta Lynch to the position of attorney general. The Senate leadership's deafening silence over the past four months extends a disgrace that predates this nation's Constitution.
Lynch has earned the respect and admiration of her colleagues, supervisors and even the Senate Judiciary Committee over her spectacular career. Her recent prosecutions of Citibank and HSBC demonstrate a commitment to the law that will inspire a new generation of legal minds in the 21st century. Her record of sustained excellence does not deserve the smug derision that partisan senators have offered this year. Yet, their recalcitrance should have been anticipated, as this continues the historic demagoguery we have witnessed over the last six years.
Michelle Bernard, a black independent conservative stated in "
How Senate Republicans’ Stalling Loretta Lynch Paves the Way for Hillary Clinton":
In their blind devotion to saying no to all-things-Obama, members of the right wing have proven yet again that they are willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of our democratic system to draw blood from their commander in chief as he prepares to leave the White House in just two very short years. But in bludgeoning Obama, they also bloody the republic, dismantling the rights and protections of women and minority groups in their bumbling effort to get the man who could not be gotten. Are these extremists racists? Are they sexist? These become moot points when they are willing to directly assault those most different from them to get to a man they were unable to defeat in 2008 or 2012.
Republicans have been unsuccessful in all of their attempts to beat the president at the ballot box, break him or get him to genuflect as they see fit. He’s taken them head-on and refused to bow or accept their disrespect. So great is the hatred of some against the president, that they are willing to keep the much-maligned Eric Holder in place rather than give the president a vote on his nominee.
This strategy would make sense if it were a winning one, but in light of changing demographics, it trades logic for the instant gratification of trolling Lynch’s nomination with abortion fights and amnesty digs, believing they will only be riling the opposition, forgetting all the women, African Americans, Latinos, LGBT people and others caught in their wake of hate.
These fools think they are simply dissin' the President. Well they are dissin' us
all.
Give 'em a call.
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The day a movement broke Tumblr TalkingPointMemo: The Day Black Selfies Took Over Tumblr.
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On March 6, Tumblr users expect-the-greatest, blkoutqueen and nukirk orchestrated an unprecedented digital movement of black beauty and brilliance. By encouraging black Tumblr users to simply post photos of themselves on their blogs using the hashtag, the three succeeded in filling dashboards all over the site with a celebratory archive of images of blackness.
T’von Green (aka expect-the-greatest) says he proposed the idea in response to the barrage of whiteness both on Tumblr itself and in broader media outlets.
“Of course you always see more white people on magazines, and on Tumblr you always see those artsy model-esque blogs, and I was tired of it,” he says. “My people are beautiful and gorgeous in every way [and] the world doesn’t see us as we see ourselves.”
That sentiment isn’t new: It parallels the “Black Is Beautiful” slogan of the late 1960s, popularized during the height of Black Liberation and Civil Rights struggles. The catchphrase reflected the cultural, psychological arm of the movement for racial justice, which sought to increase black self esteem at a time when the nation experienced tremendous upheaval and violent pushback to activists’ efforts. At its core, it was a reminder that black people are no less deserving of affirmation than anyone else—a celebration of blackness that elevated its collective dynamism.
When Green first had the idea for #BlackOutDay, he joined forces with fellow Tumblr user Marissa Rei (now blkoutqueen, formerly recklessthottie), who coined the #blackout name, and graphic designer NuKirk, who created social media logos that helped the message spread across multiple mediums. (Variations of the hashtag included #BlackOutDay, #BlackOut, #TheBlackOut.) The post that outlined the goals and logistics of the first #BlackOutDay appeared on a blog NuKirk moderates.
Black Tumblr users of all kinds posted during both the inaugural #BlackOutDay, and the second one last Friday. Some users noted that they were normally not comfortable sharing photos of themselves, but found affirmation and encouragement through the hashtag. One user’s widely re-posted photo includes a caption sharing the impetus behind his post: “I tend to avoid posting pictures for a movement,” he wrote. “…However after seeing some pictures of other African-American in similar positions as myself…after some thought I built up the courage.” Queer and trans black people, disabled black people, black Muslims, and black people with a vast range of body types and skin tones—all sharing space and energy. In the democratized space of the hashtag, dominant standards of beauty that privilege whiteness felt far less intractable.
“Just to see thousands of people get behind this, [even telling] stories about how they don’t feel their beauty being black made me feel special,” Green says. “It made me get teary-eyed.”
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Black immigrants make up 9 percent of the black population in the states. Color Lines: Pew Report Highlights on Black Immigrants.
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In a 30-page, two-chapter report on black immigration released Thursday, the Pew Research Center notes that 9 percent—the rising share—of the black population in the United States is made up immigrants. But who are they?
54 percent of black immigrants are citizens. That’s 7 percent higher than average for immigrants overall.
26 percent of black immigrants have graduated college. That’s close to the 30 percent general population average, and higher than the 19 percent average for back people born in the U.S.
The average household income for black immigrants is $43,800. That’s considerably lower than the $52,000 national average, but higher than the $33,500 average for black people born in the U.S.
Just 40 percent of black migrants own their homes. That’s lower than the national average homeownership average of 64 percent; it’s also close but still lower than the 42 percent average for black people born in the U.S.
These numbers change when you consider the region that black immigrants originate from. African migrants hold more college degrees than both other black immigrants and the general U.S. population. Meanwhile, black South American immigrants have a higher household income than other black immigrants and the general U.S. population. And, at 46 percent, Caribbean and South American black immigrants have the highest homeownership rate.
The report also dedicates a short chapter on how black migration has changed in the last 15 years—that’s important because, according to Pew, 45 percent of black immigrants first arrived in 2000 or later.
A woman places her hands on flag during a naturalization ceremony in New York City on May 22, 2014. Spencer Platt/Getty
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The Center for Public Integrity digs in deeper on an issue of growing public interest: the school-to-prison pipeline. Color Lines: Report: Virginia Sends More Students to Cops Than Any Other State.
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That is, the way that schools work hand in hand with the police and juvenile justice systems to mete out school discipline for students, a disproportionate number of whom are black, Latino, or diagnosed with a disability.
This time the focus is the state of Virginia, where students, many of them pre-adolescent youngsters and children of color, have had criminal charges filed against them for such infractions as kicking a trash can, or struggling against a school police officer who’s trying to detain them, or even being caught clenching their fists in front of a school police officer.
By referring an average of 15.8 out of every 1,000 students to the police, the Center for Public Integrity found, Virginia tops the nation in state rankings measuring how many students get sent to the police or courts. Among the top 15 states, nearly every state refers a disproportionately higher number of its black and Latino students and students with disabilities to cops than their peers. In Vermont, for instance, schools sends roughly 7 students to police officers for every 1,000 students, but more than three times that many black students to the juvenile justice system for every 1,000 students.
The Center for Public Integrity shares examples of the kind of behavior for Virginia youth that’s considered criminal:
One of McCausland’s clients is a 15-year-old charged with assault and sexual battery after she pushed a girl in the bathroom and kissed her. “Sexual abuse, that’s a pretty serious charge,” McCausland said. Another is an 11-year-old with mental-health problems who stole her teacher’s cell phone and was automatically charged with felony theft because the phone is worth at least $200.
“She can’t do long division, but she can get felony theft,” McCausland said.
McCausland believes the problem is compounded by police who she says “pile” charges on kids.
A 12-year-old client went to pick up her cousin at an elementary school, saw a fight and pulled her cousin out of it, McCausland said, and when a school cop grabbed her she swore. The cop charged her with obstruction of justice for clenching her first, along with trespassing, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
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Singer John Legend has launched a campaign to end mass incarceration. The Grio: John Legend launches campaign to end mass incarceration, ‘Free America’.
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The Grammy-winning singer announced the multiyear initiative, FREE AMERICA, on Monday. He will visit and perform at a correctional facility on Thursday in Austin, Texas, where he also will be part of a press conference with state legislators to discuss Texas’ criminal justice system.
“We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country,” Legend said in an interview. “It’s destroying families, it’s destroying communities and we’re the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.”
Legend, 36, will also visit a California state prison and co-host a criminal justice event with Politico in Washington, D.C., later this month. The campaign will include help from other artists — to be announced — and organizations committed to ending mass incarceration.
“I’m just trying to create some more awareness to this issue and trying to make some real change legislatively,” he said. “And we’re not the only ones. There are senators that are looking at this, like Rand Paul and Cory Booker, there are other nonprofits that are looking at this, and I just wanted to add my voice to that.”
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Gentrification comes to South Africa. Economist: Polishing the city of gold.
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CENTRAL Johannesburg’s newest draw for hipsters was once a mining-explosives warehouse, a relic of the city’s gold rush, with part of the building believed to predate the Boer war of 1899-1902. It stood derelict for years. Now it is TheSheds@1Fox, a cavernous hall of vendors selling craft beer, flambéed chorizo and artisanal tacos, attracting trendsetters and young families to a block that not long ago was best avoided.
This is the latest example of developers bringing fresh life to pockets of South Africa’s economic capital, for years saddled with a largely deserved reputation for crime and chaos. The gentrification of small sections of inner-city Johannesburg is generally welcome. There is nothing romantic about the decay of the past two decades. As apartheid waned, white middle-class residents fled to the northern suburbs and companies shifted their headquarters. Hard-up black migrants previously relegated to the margins moved into the abandoned buildings, seeking opportunities in the City of Gold. Johannesburg became a fearsome place of filthy streets, a horrendous crime rate and the phenomenon of criminals “hijacking” buildings from their owners and forcibly collecting rent from poor tenants.
The city is slowly changing from dangerous to pleasantly thrilling. Young creative types of all ethnicities have been drawn to such areas as Braamfontein and Maboneng, where refurbished buildings offer downtown living at reasonable rents. The Rough Guides travel book named Johannesburg—not its rival, Cape Town—as the must-visit city of 2015.
This first wave of gentrification, accompanied by good security, is still tentative, however. Although crime is falling, it is still high, as elsewhere in South Africa. A Starbucks coffee shop has yet to pop up. A recent violent protest in the Jeppestown area of Johannesburg exposed the residual cracks. Poor residents facing eviction by private developers turned their anger on nearby Maboneng (“Place of Light” in the Sotho language), an area that has been redeveloped into loft apartments, a boutique hotel and an art-house cinema. “We want to eat sushi in Maboneng,” the protesters chanted, burning tyres and throwing rocks, before being dispersed by police firing rubber bullets.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
"As much as things change, things remain the same." "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
How many times have we heard those refrains? Yet, are they any less true if we had heard them but once? Or a lifetime's worth? It may be human nature that requires us to be constantly reminded of that which went before; or it may be the affliction Gore Vidal coined, "American Amnesia".
Langston Hughes wrote the following that has the eerie echo of events just happening. But he wrote it when jackboots were beginning a goosestep across the Polish plains, when an American Corporatocracy consolidated wealth in the hands of a distinct few, while tens of millions toiled and starved, when a respected journal published an...
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Have luncheon there this afternoon, all you jobless.
Why not?
Dine with some of the men and women who got rich off of your labor, who clip coupons with clean white fingers because your hands dug coal, drilled stone, sewed garments, poured steel to let other people draw dividends and live easy.
(Or haven't you had enough yet of the soup-lines and the bitter bread of charity?)
Walk through Peacock Alley tonight before dinner, and get warm, anyway.
You've got nothing else to do.
-- Langston Hughes
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Today marks the one year anniversary of the kidnapping 276 schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Chibok by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria.
Approximately 230 are still missing.
There are marches being held around the world.
In NYC the Empire State Building is being lit in purple and red in honor of #Bringbackourgirls
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