Collier Meyerson at The Nation writes—Police Officer Who Killed Philando Castile Is Found Not Guilty:
When we got to the governor’s house, on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, a hot rain exploded onto the protesters, the kind that offers no relief, no break in the weather, just an even worse humidity, if that’s possible in a Minnesota summer. I had walked along the protesters for a short distance, a block or two, from the elementary school where Philando Castile worked serving lunch to kids, to the governor’s house. At the front of the protest was Castile’s family and his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, crying as she held up a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt—Reynolds, along with her 4-year-old daughter, witnessed a police officer shoot and kill Castile in his car after he announced to the officer that he had a licensed gun in the glove compartment.
The protest was unlike any other I’d covered. It was truly diverse. There were so many residents of St. Paul’s black community there; the Castiles, a childhood friend told me, were “a big family” in St. Paul. And there were lots of people from his school, colleagues who attested to his warm and friendly character. He was one of those “perfect negroes,” I thought to myself, one of the ones you can’t mess up with a flimsy story about how he sold loose cigarettes, like Eric Garner was. “There probably wasn’t even a story raising questions about him stealing a cigarillo,” I thought to myself, sickly hopeful. Since all human beings are fallible, “perfect negroes” are an impossibility, but I thought, because I was desperate, that Philando Castile might be one. The only time I held out hope that there might be consequences for the police following the shooting death of a black American was for Tamir Rice, a child so young that to create a myth around him being a big, bad miscreant would be impossible. I was wrong there. And I’m wrong here.
The “perfect negro,” a description so unfair it’s absurd, doesn’t work. The not-guilty verdict, returned after an initial deadlocked jury and after more than 25 hours of deliberation, proves that even a liberal enclave like the one Castile worked in and lived in, that having a licensed gun, like the one Castile had, that having a 4-year-old girl in the back of the vehicle he was operating, cannot bring worth to a black man’s life in the eyes of a cruelly racist justice system. [...]
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QUOTATION
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air—however slight—lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
~Justice William O Douglas, 1976 letter to the Young Lawyers Section of the Washington State Bar Association
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At on this date in 2005—GOP game plan for 2006:
Okay. Now we know what the Republicans will run on in 2006.
The White House accused Democratic leaders on Wednesday of obstructing President Bush's agenda in a second straight day of combative attacks against the minority party on Capitol Hill.
"I think the American people reject those who simply say no and stand in the way of getting things done," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
Never mind that Republicans have the trifecta, with dominant majorities in both chambers of the legislature. What is this obstructionism that we keep hearing about
So far [Bush] has been unable to gain traction in Congress over his proposals to overhaul Social Security and has had ongoing struggles over energy legislation and the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, among other items.
On Social Security in particular, Bush has called on Democrats to offer their own proposals instead of simply attacking his, but the tactic has largely not worked.
Listen, Mr. President, you have the numbers to pass your legislation in the House, but I haven't seen any of it introduced. Heck, I haven't even seen a social security bill from the White House, so I'm not sure what "plan" you're referring to.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: A long look at the Senate Republicans’ secret Trumpcare “process,” what it means & how ridiculous their answers to simple questions about it are. Trump’s cronyism continues. More procedural damage to come in the Senate. Plus your weekend reading.
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