Daughter of Black City Councilman Tased In Back - While on Her Knees

Copied verbatim from Tasered While Black.

Another American Post-Racial Moment

This one out of Cincinnati.

Cincinnati police say the preliminary investigations says Officer Anthony Plummer's actions were not in compliance with Cincinnati Police Departments policies and procedures. Also, the tasing investigation has been recommended to be conducted by the internal investigation section.

Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.

Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.

"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.

See news video and additional information at Tasered While Black.

Color of Change Wages Campaign Against Glenn Beck's Anti-Obama Color Arousal

President Obama has "hatred for white people"? Glenn Beck is using his platform to stoke race-based hate and fear. Help us fight back, by hitting Beck where it hurts, NOW:

Contact the shows sponsors here.

Color of change says:

More and more, right-wing talk show hosts are bringing race-based fear mongering into the mainstream, but FOX's Glenn Beck just took it to another level. On Tuesday, Beck said:

This president has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for white people... this guy is, I believe, a racist.¹

It's part of a larger argument Beck has been making:² that President Obama is using the White House to serve the needs of Black communities at White people's expense. This kind of talk stirs up fear, hate, and it can lead to violence.^3,4

Together we can stop Glenn Beck.⁵ Starting today we're calling Beck's advertisers, asking them if they want to be associated with this kind of racist hate and fear-mongering. When they see tens of thousands of people signing on behind that question, we believe they'll move their advertising dollars elsewhere, damaging the viability of his show and possibly putting him out of business.

All it requires is you, standing up and being counted. Please take a moment to join the effort, and invite your friends and family to do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/?id=1780-175369

Glenn Beck is appealing to the worst in America. Of course, some people refuse to accept the fact that our president is Black or the idea that he could truly serve all Americans. We know that. The only way these views will fade away is if they're not reinforced by mainstream society. Instead, folks like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs,⁶ and Rush Limbaugh⁷ are exploiting racism and race-based fear to bump their ratings, stirring up racial discord in the process.

The dangers of these tactics are real. We saw the same dynamic during the presidential race: by the end, the McCain/Palin campaign was unable to control the violent energy whipped up by their race-baiting. The result was an unprecedented number of threats on Obama's life, a rise in the number of hate groups, and an increase in the number of threats and crimes against immigrants and Black people.^8,9,10

FOX has had a long history of race-baiting and racism on its shows, and we've run campaigns calling them out.^11,12 But Glenn Beck appears to be taking the network to an even lower standard. He's trying to divide and distract America when we should be coming together and talking about issues that really matter--like health care and the economy.

The good news is that we have the power to stop this. All major media is funded by advertising. And advertisers, more than anything, care what consumers think. If we want to change what's happening and put an end to folks like Glenn Beck having a platform, we can do it.

It's up to us, and it can start now. Please join us:

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/?id=1780-175369

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 30th, 2009

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/?id=1780-175369

References

1. "Beck: Obama has 'exposed himself as a guy' with 'a deep seated hatred for white people'" Media Matters, 7-28-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907280008

2. "Glenn Beck: Obama agenda driven by 'reparations' and desire to 'settle old racial scores'," Media Matters, 7-23-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907230040

3. "Palin linked to death threats against Obama," Economic Times, 11-9-2008
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3691429.cms

4. "Obama win prompts wave of hate crimes," Times Online, 11-17-2008
http://tinyurl.com/5rhf29

5. "MSNBC's Deutsch encourages viewers to demand advertisers on Beck's show spend money elsewhere," Media Matters, 7-29-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907290037

6. "On Television and Radio, Talk of Obama's Citizenship," The New York Times, 7-24-09
http://tinyurl.com/mb467j

7. "Rush and reparations," The Nation, 5-12-2009
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/435392/rush_and_reparations

8. See reference 2.

9. See reference 3.

10. "Homeland Security report warns of rising right-wing extremism, Huffington Post, 4-14-2009
http://tinyurl.com/cpgx6q

11. ColorOfChange.org email on Fox's attacks on the Obamas
http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/message.html

12. "An overview: Fox News and its problem with African-Americans," ColorOfChange.org
http://colorofchange.org/fox/summary.html

Francis L. Holland Circulates Online Petition Supporting Confirmation of Judge Sotomayor

Afrosphere blogger Atty. Francis L. Holland has prepared and is circulating an online petition supporting President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be a justice of the US Supreme Court. Atty. Holland has prepared a widget that blogs can adopt to show solidarity with the President and his US Supreme Court pick. Holland has started a group called "Americans for a Pluralistic US Supreme Court" to circulate the petition and build support for Judge Sotomayor's nomination.

Holland says,

It's obvious what the Republicans are doing. They want to repeat Judge Sotomayor's "wise Latina woman" quote over and over again, in the hopes of convincing the public that owning one's own ethnic heritage is the equivalent of "racism". Therefore the only people who should be on the Court are those who purportedly "are not part of any ethnic or gender group": white men!

This petition "owns" and exults in the fact that Sotomayor is a "wise Latina woman" and explains that historically only white men were allowed on the Court -- a white male quota system -- which is precisely why the US Senate must confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in addition to Sotomayor's obviously excellent credentials.

The online petition says:

View Current Signatures - Sign the Petition

---

To: Members of the US Senate

I strongly support and urge immediate Senate confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nominee for the US Supreme Court: “wise Latina woman”, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who now sits on U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

At present, the US Supreme Court has nine members, of whom seven are white men. This is unfair and unbalanced. According to the US Census, the nation is less than 33% white male, while it is approximately 51% female, 15% Latino and 13% Black. Although white males are the minority of America, they remain the vast majority of the US Supreme Court, just as was the case before women and minorities gained the right to vote.

It is impossible in a pluralistic society for a Court comprised of 78% white men to make wise, reasoned and sound decisions affecting the lives of a nation which is less than 33% white male. A wise and just Supreme Court requires a diversity of experiences, with the participation of representatives of the majority of Americans.

For far too long, there has been a quota system at the United States Supreme Court. The de facto quota system required that all or the vast majority of the nine members of the Court be white males. In the history of the nation, there have never been more than three members of the court who were not white males at any one time. The anachronistic white male quota system is no longer tenable as the nation strives to treat all Americans equally and to have a government all of whose branches have the consent and participation of the nation’s diverse populace.

The US Supreme Court cannot function wisely, justly, and fairly without the full participation of wise women and wise members of the nation’s minority groups, including the nation’s largest minority – Latinos. Therefore, we urge our elected representatives in the US Senate to immediately confirm the “wise Latina woman” who has earned our respect and support: soon-to-be US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

View Current Signatures

This petition is not formally or informally a project of the Afrosphere Action Coalition per se, but it's worth announcing it to the afrosphere so that participants can support it or not, as they wish.

A Day of Blogging for Justice: Standing Up Against the Police Pre-Trial Electrocution - April 24, 2009

By African American Political Pundit:

Hat Tip and Shout Out to the Villager at the blog Electronic Village for his recent blog post. Check out how the afrospear is blogging about the issue of the tasing, beating and electrocution of Black folks in America. He writes about A Day of Blogging for Justice: Standing Up Against the Police Pre-Trial Electrocution

The AfroSpear is calling on all bloggers to join us in a Day of Blogging for Justice: Standing Up Against the Police Pre-Trial Electrocution on Friday, April 24, 2009.

The rules are simple:

1. Share a post on your blog focused on your concerns about the tasering of Blacks folks.
2. Send an email to AfricanAmericanPoliticalPundit@gmail.com so that we may document everyone's participation.

He gives examples of what bloggers have been reporting on the police pre-trial electrocution:

• Afro-Netizen - Taser Death of Black man by White cop near Jean ...


• Black Voices - 21st Century Whips


• Diane Dimond - The 50-Thousand Volt Solution


• Electronic Village - Police Taser 16-Year Old Robert Mitchell to Death


• Electronic Village - Taser Policy Defined by 'Use of Force Continuum'


• Jack and Jill Politics - A Day of Blogging for Justice - Against Extra-Judicial ...


• Mondoglobo - Lousiana Police Electrocute Handcuffed Man in Grocery Store
• 
  


• Pam's House Blend - NC: More Freestyle Law Enforcement Death-by-Taser


• Problem Chylde - Tasing as Deadly Force


• Race Wire - Black Teenager Killed by Cop’s Taser


• Tasered While Black - Black Man Pepper Sprayed, Batoned, Tased ...


• Tasered While Black - Police Taser and Kill Black Man and Laugh About It


• Tasered While Black - Black Man Tased and Beaten in Peoria, IL.


• The Super Spade - Tasered While Black


• Ultraviolet Underground - Electrocuted While Black

I like the villager, and so many other bloggers hope that you will participate. Please read villager's complete post on A Day of Blogging for Justice: Standing Up Against the Police Pre-Trial Electrocution

Related Blog Posts

15 Year old Detroit boy with asthma dies after being Tasered While Black

From African American Political Pundit

Fort Worth Police Tasered a Mentally Ill Black Man To Death

From African American Political Pundit

From Francis L. Holland posting at Electrocuted While Black.

New Facebook Group Urges Blacks To Scrupulously Observe Traffic Laws in Houston TX, Even if it Leads to Increased Traffic Conjestion.

There is a new Black-led Facebook group, called "Slow Down Police Color Aroused Traffic Stops and Brutality," Seventy-two FaceBook members Have joined the group in its first twenty-hour Tewhe group encourages drivers in Houston, TX, particularly, and elsewhere, to scrupulously follow all traffic laws intended for public safety, even if doing so to the satisfaction of color-aroused police causes traffic to slow to a standstill in Houston, TX and elsewhere.

Phil Pierre-Paul, a young Black college student and writer for New Jersey Institute of Tecnhology Stute College Newspaper, who started the group to follow this movement, says,

Black people are tired of constantly beingegarded as [traffic] law violators . . . In response, some have started a campaign to protest police color aroused traffic stops and brutality. The campaign is intended to raise awareness of driving carefully and to show participants determination to be law-abiding citizens. [even if the effect of such scrupulous obedience to each and every traffic law is that streets and highways slow to a crawl, or become entirely impassible. . . . As a young black blogger, I have created this group to follow this new initiative of driving carefully.Facebook Group This new Facebook blogs is repleat with Texas laws citations and advocacy links that suggest

strategies for driving slowly while following the applicable Houston Texas traffic laws, to avoid being stopped by police and also to demonstrate the enormous commercial, tourist, and shopping dislocations that will result from Black drivers exhibiting the level of Hoston ,TX police and elsewhere.

I certainly hope these efforts are succesful, since the only proven way to make whites concerned about Black civil rights issues is to demonstrate how they effect whites as well. The scrupulous driving that will be required t stop traffic stops of Blacks will inevitably slow down Houston, TX highways and elsewhere, making Blacks and white drivers allles in this effort to reduce unwarranted police stops and free the highways for dricing once again.

Draft Petition Against Police Color Aroused Traffic Stop Brutality

To the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice:

We respectfully request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice investigate the statistically high rates of police stop and search incidents involving Black drivers and passengers, to identify and prosecute cases in which the civil rights of these drivers and passengers are being violated.

Law-abiding Black professionals, including retired police officers and nationally recognized sports figures caring for family members in times of emergency, have been taunted, harassed and humiliated. Pregnant Black women who were rushing to the hospital have been stopped and denied medical care, leading to miscarriage, with the offending police officers asking, "How is that my problem?"

Each of these cases is but one example of the menace that Black motorists and passengers face throughout the United States, simply for "Driving While Black" (DWB).

According to a 2007 US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics press release:

• The most common reason for police contact in 2002 and 2005 was a traffic stop, accounting for about 40 percent of all contacts.
• Blacks were almost three times as likely as whites to report that excessive force was used against them in contacts with law enforcement, while Latinos reported excessive force twice as often as whites.
• Police searched three times as many Blacks and Hispanic drivers as white drivers.

We urge the Justice Department to adopt a policy of vigorously investigating complaints of traffic stop police brutality in every state where it occurs.

We urge that the Justice Department condition financial support for state and local police activities upon findings that such police organizations vigorously screen, discipline and terminate police officials whose color-aroused and abusive behaviors, and tolerance of such behaviors, make all police activity seem suspect in minority communities.

We further urge that police in every American jurisdiction make a sincere and sustained effort to distinguish between law abiding Americans and others, rather than treating all Black Americans as if we were guilty and inherently insusceptible of being proved innocent.

To underscore our determination that law-abiding Black drivers and passengers be perceived and treated as such, we hereby announce our intention to scrupulously observe each and every traffic law intended for the protection of the public, in every case. We are determined to willingly accept as a group -- with patience, prayer and diligent meditation -- any traffic delays that may result from our determination to be perceived and treated as models of perfect traffic-law obedience.

To prove our commitment to traffic safety as well as equal justice under the laws, we will drive at the lowest permissible speeds on the streets and highways where we live, taking each and every precaution that the police demand of us, even if it causes traffic jams as far as the eye can see, and continuing without relent until our nation realizes that it is better to end color-aroused police traffic stop persecution right now, rather than to live with perpetual color-aroused traffic jams forever and ever more.

We urge all Americans to be patient with us as we demonstrate, through rigorously and meticulously responsible driving behavior, that our greatest priority when driving, in addition to traffic safety, is that we be treated with the respect and consideration that all human beings deserve, regardless of how long it takes us to get there.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/cpp05pr.htm

http://afrosphereactionalerts.blogspot.com/2009/04/draft-petition-against-police-color.html

Signed,

Color of Change Petition: States Must Distribute Unemployment Benefits Authorized by Obama

Dear Readers:

Please sign the Color of Change Petition demanding that Republican governors accept the increased unemployment benefits that President Obama is offering.

Color of Change says:

The country is in real trouble right now, with unemployment spiraling out of control. President Obama's stimulus plan provides money to expand unemployment assistance. But a group of Republican governors, led by Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, is trying to score political points by blocking that assistance from reaching the people who need it. It's cynical and disgusting.

These governors are playing with people's lives. They're trying to further their political ambitions while showing they could care less about the fate of everyday folks--even in their own state.

Please join me in calling them out and forcing the media spotlight on them. I just signed ColorOfChange.org's open letter demanding they do the right thing. Together, we can help make sure that in times of hardship folks get the assistance they need. It only takes a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/govs/?id=1780-175369

It's incredible. President Obama's stimulus package provides money for states to extend unemployment benefits for people in dire need of help, but a handful of Republican governors--Bob Riley of Alabama, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana--are putting politics over people.

All six governors have threatened to turn down these funds. Four are 2012 presidential contenders, and they all have a vested interest in seeing Obama fail. They're attacking the President's policies to increase their own profile and cozy up to the most die-hard conservatives. They also claim that taking the stimulus money would leave their states in debt when it runs out in three years. But that argument rings hollow--state legislatures could reduce benefits to pre-stimulus levels at that point.

While these governors posture, Black folks suffer the most. In all of these states, Black unemployment is at least twice that of Whites--and in Louisiana and Mississippi, the two Blackest states in the Union, the unemployment rate among Black people approaches three times that of their White neighbors.

Please join me in telling these Republican governors to stop putting their personal and political interests above the good of all their states' citizens. Demand that they accept all of the stimulus money designated for unemployment benefits. And please ask your friends and family to do the same by passing this message on.

http://www.colorofchange.org/govs/?id=1780-175369

Thanks.