Isn’t it about time Black folks get more than just “thank you”?
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
Watching the chaotic events of the last few days unfold, with the nation’s cadre of white supremacists flexing their un-hooded muscles, spewing hate from every pore of their being, while the heroic actions of Black Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman prevented what could have amounted to a major tragedy during the domestic terrorist incursions into Congress, has got me to thinking.
All this has happened right after having celebrated a major victory in Georgia — allowing Democrats to take control of the Senate, due to the efforts of Black folks — especially Black women.
I’ve seen a slew of tweets and posts saying, “thank you Black people” for saving America, yet again.
My problem is, thank you’s, while nice and feel goody, don’t do anything to change the objective conditions under which we live in the country we built on our backs, after y’all stole the land from Native Americans.
Though it seems a lotta folks, mostly not-Black, are “surprised” by the current level of white vitriol, I’m not. Been watching it, and experiencing it my whole life. It’s been around since slavery times, and it ain’t going away any time soon.
The good news is that we now have control of the White House, the Senate and the Congress. I make no predictions about what will happen during midterms (I hope fingers-crossed — we’ll maintain that, but who the hell really knows?)
So, while we have a certain level of political power, best to strike when we can and turn those thank you’s into concrete legislation and reparations for Black folks. We can’t eat acclamation, thank you’s don’t make a dent in housing segregation, segregated school systems, racial disparities in health care, or income differentials by race.
Yes, I said “the R word.” I am thinking back to “A forum on "The Case for Reparations" held right here on Daily Kos, hosted by Black Kos, on Tuesday June 03, 2014. Quite a lot has happened since then, and I think it is time to revisit the issue. FYI — not talking about the ADOS trolls version, which I discussed in “We should be discussing reparations for slavery. Beware those with a right-wing agenda.”
If you missed the forum, suggest you go back and read it, and look at the comments. Though some of the participants are no longer posting here on Daily Kos, the discussion was very worthwhile.
I realize that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have developed plans that will help the Black community. However, it is going to take more than just their goodwill to turn plans into meaningful programs. On top of their plans, we also need to address the impact of the rabid hate of Black folks this country has been steeped in for hundreds of years. We need national Truth and Reconciliation forums. Rep. Barbara Lee has already drafted legislation for such an effort.
So thank you for your thanks, but turn those thanks into something we can take to the bank, along with applying the Balm in Gilead, needed for all our spirits.
What you do for us, will ultimately benefit the entire nation.
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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The cops who traumatized a group of Black children by handcuffing them and holding them face down on the ground at gunpoint in Aurora, Colorado this summer—based on incompetent police work—will not face any consequences for their actions.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Clinton McKinzie in Colorado said on Friday that there will be no charges made against officers from the Aurora Police Department (APD) who drew their guns on four Black girls, ranging in ages from 6 to 17, and made them lie on the pavement last August on the incorrect suspicion that they were in a stolen car.
“What happened to the innocent occupants is unacceptable and preventable, but that alone is an insufficient basis to affix criminal culpability to the two officers involved in the initial contact,” McKinzie wrote in a letter explaining the decision not to charge the cops identified as Officers Darian Dasko and Madisen Moen, according to the Denver Post.
The girls were headed to a nail salon with their aunt when Dasko and Madisen stopped car they were in and ordered them out, handcuffing the aunt as well as two of the children. All four of the girls, including the 6 year old, were then made to lie on their stomachs on asphalt at the height of summer.
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A Capitol Police officer is being hailed as a hero for drawing an angry mob away from the entrance to the Senate floor Wednesday as rioters smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol.
In viral video from the scene, the officer is seen glancing to his left and notices the unobstructed hallway to the Senate as he was chased up a flight of stairs. The officer, identified by CNN as Eugene Goodman, at first tried to block an open door before realizing he was alone and being pursued.
Goodman, armed with a baton, pushes the leader of the pack, a man wearing a black QAnon shirt later identified as Doug Jensen from Des Moines. Jensen was focused on Goodman and appeared not to notice the open hallway leading to the Senate chambers.
Jensen chased Goodman, who led him and the mob away from the Senate floor. The group, all white men, followed the Black officer into a group of police in a back corridor outside the Senate.
"His name is USCP Officer Eugene Goodman. Remember his name. He almost certainly saved lives on Wednesday," tweeted CNN reporter Kristin Wilson. "My thanks, Officer Goodman. THANK YOU."
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It’s ludicrous to claim that cops would have opened fire if Black people were involved in a chaotic incident similar to the Great White Riot that occurred at the U.S. Capitol Building. In fact, we should stop pretending how cops, or white people in general, would react “if a Black person...” did anything.
It’s “when Black people...”
On November 22, 2018, Hoover, Ala. Police Officer David Alexander shot and killed 21-year-old Emantic Bradford in the back. According to surveillance video, Bradford, a veteran and legal gun owner, pulled out his gun during the ensuing chaos after a suspect opened fire at a Hoover mall on Thanksgiving Day 2018.
Police initially blamed the mall shooting on Bradford. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall later removed the county’s first Black district attorney from the case because of a photo taken with an activist who protested the shooting. After a brief investigation, Marshall ruled that Officer Alexander “reasonably exercised his official powers,” concluding that the actions of police were “justified and not criminal.”
“Officer 1 identified E.J. Bradford as an immediate deadly threat to innocent civilians and thus shot Bradford to eliminate the threat,” Marshall said, adding: “Officer 1 reasonably determined that E.J. Bradford’s demeanor— i.e. sprinting toward the initial shooting site and its victim, while everyone else ran away—made him an immediate threat, rather than an innocent bystander.”
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Uganda is an overwhelmingly young country, led by a 76-year-old seeking a sixth term as president.
Two-thirds of registered voters are younger than 30, which means Yoweri Museveni has led Uganda for their whole lives. His main challenger in Thursday’s election is a 38-year-old musician who was a toddler when Museveni took power as leader of an armed rebellion.
And so the contest between the grandfatherly incumbent and the spindly singer-turned-politician, Bobi Wine, has come to embody the most essential of democratic divides: change vs. stability, idealism vs. wisdom, the frustrated young vs. the fearful old.
Who wins may come down to how many young people buy into Museveni’s warnings that a vote against him is a vote for destabilization. His speeches play up his government’s slow but steady progress on economic development and portray Wine as a candidate of chaos.
“Even though the country is stable, young people do not have jobs,” said Ampaire Emmanuel, a 31-year-old motorcycle taxi driver. “Our challenges are many, and we hope that when there is a change in government things will get better.”
While about 700,000 young people reach working age every year in Uganda, only 75,000 jobs are created on average, according to the World Bank.
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The Atlanta Dream’s Elizabeth Williams on how their endorsement in the runoff Senate election comes after years of the league pushing for social change. VoX: How the WNBA helped flip Georgia blue
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On our first nationally televised game of the 2020 WNBA season, my team — the Atlanta Dream — decided to seize the moment. We walked into the arena wearing tees that said Vote Warnock, a sea of black shirts of solidarity. At the time, Rev. Raphael Warnock was a long shot in Georgia’s Senate election, a Democrat polling at fourth in a traditionally red state. What made our endorsement extra bold is that his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, the sitting senator, was a co-owner of our team.
Flash forward to five months later, and I’m lying in my bed in Ankara, Turkey, where I’m playing in the Turkish league for the winter, scrolling anxiously through Twitter. I had barely slept the night before, waking up every couple of hours to check the news of Georgia’s Senate race. That’s when I spotted the tweet.
“Warnock has been declared the winner of Georgia’s runoff election.”
Almost immediately, I opened up our Dream team group chat. Congratulations were pouring in from our coach, our general manager, and our teammates. The candidate we endorsed would give Georgia its first Black senator. All I could feel was relief.
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Republican House members Reps. Burgess Owens and Byron Donalds delegitimized the votes of Black Americans and desecrated the blood of our ancestors. The Grio: Black GOP Congressmen who joined the Trump coup must resign
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Two newly-elected Black Republican congressmen signed up in support of the attempted Trump coup and overturn the 2020 presidential election — now it is time for them to resign.
These men joined a conspiracy to delegitimize the votes of Black Americans and desecrated the blood of our ancestors. And their act of sedition resulted in the White supremacist siege on the Capitol.
The two House members are Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), the former NFL player with ties to the QAnon pro-Trump conspiracy cult, and Byron Donalds (R-FL), a Black conservative and former Tea Party activist. Prior to the U.S. Capitol siege, Owens and Donalds joined the more than 100 Republicans who announced they would reject the Electoral College votes of certain states that brought presidential victory to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.
Owens, who calls himself the “anti-Colin Kaepernick” and labeled Black Lives Matter “a Marxist organization” comparable to the Ku Klux Klan, spoke at the Republican National Convention last year, praising Trump’s record on race.
Moreover, these two Black congressmen have blood on their hands. Their seditious acts emboldened the White domestic terrorists who came to Washington armed with guns and bombs, stormed the Capitol, ransacked the place and sought to overthrow the government — killing five people, including a federal police officer, in the process.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
There can be no truth and reconciliation without first having a reckoning. And even then it might not be enough. The second officer in the Oscar Grant killing will not have any charges levied against him after all these years, in spite of footage showing him harassing BART riders that night, punching Grant and abusing his power. We are somehow forced to find unity after that. How is that possible?
In Sweden, the Sunday comics are called, the Pretty Papers. Two-dimensional characters in lively hues communicate panel by panel, imparting sublime truths and a chuckle. But rarely, a reckoning.
dithers and bumstead trying to vote
who gets to hold the gun
and who gets to sleep
on the other’s watch—
where’s Blondie she’s outside
talking with the neighbors through
the fence as always
asking where’s the children—
someone says they seen them
take flight turned
to black birds wearing tee shirts printed
Black
Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter and diners
run from the restaurant failing
to pay—
a shining head drops
from the sky.
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