On the Anniversary of His Death: Huey Newton Talks to William F. Buckley

Five Dead Niggers vs. Eleven Uttered Niggers: A Racial Scorecard

Saturday Edition
Five Dead Niggers vs. Eleven Uttered Niggers: A Racial Scorecard
by Mark Anthony Neal

One index of contemporary race politics in the United States is the recent arrest of accused Israeli serial killer Elias Abuelazam and Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s on-air utterings of the word “nigger.” On their own merit, the Abuelazam arrest, in which he is accused of stabbing thirteen men, five of them fatally, and virtually all of them Black, should easily trump the meltdown of yet another way-too visible, highly compensated so-called celebrity. But such is not the case; while Schlessinger’s rant has been the talk of the chattering class on faux news programs and the blogosphere, even eliciting an apology by Schlessinger herself, the Abuelazam case has been buried in newspaper accounts, as Tom Socca points out in his smart piece “How Many Black Men Do You Have to Murder to Make the Front Page of the New York Times?” At the crux of the media’s seeming disconnect is the reality that eleven uttered “niggers” are a better news story than five dead “niggers.”

The mainstream corporate media’s gravitation to the Schlessinger story, might be excused if it actually forwarded an honest and critical conversation about race—or rather Black/White relations—but a cursory listen to the Schlessinger broadcast, which has gone viral, is a quick reminder of that impossibility. Weeks after the Shirley Sherrod controversy, in which commentators collectively missed an opportunity to illuminate the realities of racial terror and violence for the Youtube generation, Schlessinger’s comparison of the racist sentiments felt by a black women caller involved in an interracial marriage, to the routines of “black comedians” on HBO is juvenile.

That mainstream media felt compelled to cover a story, that should have been outright dismissed as pure folly, only highlights how childlike mainstream corporate media’s coverage of race politics have been. At this point we shouldn’t expect anymore from an institution that has devoted a summer long vigil for a drug-addicted B-list, former child actor, who happened to spend a few days in jail for driving under the influence.

In the case of Abuelazam, the mainstream media is often reticent to claim racist intent, in the face of attacks that seem evidently racially motivated; no doubt this contributes to their unwillingness to highlight a story in which the vast majority of the victims are Black. Thus the Abuelazam case, which focuses on a series of murders over the past four months in Flint, MI (arguably ground zero for the current financial crisis), like a similar case involving a series of murders of Black women in Rocky Mount, NC last year has flown way below the radar.

Giving mainstream corporate media some benefit of the doubt that they want to get the story right—indeed Abuelazam own mysterious racial identity complicates this—the darker explanation of their coverage is the fact that their core audiences could really care less about the death of a bunch of niggers, whether they be the men in Flint, Michigan, the too many black women victims of domestic violence (often at the hands of men who look just like them) or even the world’s most popular basketball player being burned in effigy in Cleveland.

Hypermasculinity is Akin to Death

A man is being charged with first-degree manslaughter after hitting and killing a baby.

Hypermasculinity is Akin to Death
by Mychal Denzel Smith | TheLoop21

Twenty-year old Pedro Jones of Long Island, NY is being charged with first-degree manslaughter after hitting and killing his girlfriend’s 17-month-old boy, Roy A. Jones, because he was crying and Pedro was "trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl.” He struck the child so hard with his fists that the boy went into cardiac arrest and then died at a local hospital.

When I read this story, my heart broke into a billion inconsequential pieces. An infant is dead before he even knew there was a world that existed beyond his own laughter and screams, and a confused young man is now a brutal killer and will likely spend a good deal of time behind bars without any true rehabilitation. Undoubtedly, a deplorable situation all-around.

This may seem to be an isolated incident but the mentality that created it is pervasive. While the end result here may read as extreme to some, ultimately this stands right in line with the accepted societal norms of what manhood is and is not. Roy Jones’ death is the consequence of our refusal to recognize that embracing of hyper-masculinity and its narrow definition of manhood is destructive and dehumanizing.

Our culture holds tight to the presumptions that a man should be unemotional, callous, dispassionate, and/or heartless. This is the role assigned to men and it has been adopted, accepted, reinforced and allowed to go unchecked by everyone. Pedro punched Roy because he didn’t believe a boy should be crying—because crying is female behavior—even at 17 months old when it is still the primary means of communication for a child. Pedro's extreme reaction to notions of masculinity has likely been carried with him all of his life, something that has been passed down to him from the people, men and women alike, that informed his upbringing.

Pedro internalized those lessons and applied them in the most severe manner, causing the physical death of an infant, but in no way can we write this off as singular. We are spreading these ideas to each other everyday, not only putting men in the position where they feel as if they can’t express emotion, but where they think they’re not allowed to feel in the first place. We are, in effect, teaching death.

I’m lucky to know quite a few men who have rejected conventional, societal norms of what manhood is, and they continue to serve as examples for me as I navigate my own journey. However, these men, while growing in number, seem too few and far between to make any drastic and immediate impact on the prevailing and, in my mind, pernicious mindset that disables men’s emotional growth. It would be easy to become disenchanted and cynical about the prospects, but appropriating that attitude does nothing to solve the problem.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com

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Mychal Denzel Smith is a writer currently based in Virginia Beach, VA. He blogs for Thisweekinblackness.com. Follow him on Twitter @mychalsmith or email him at mychal@theloop21.com.

We Have Failed you…An Open letter to the Spirit of Roy Jones...

We Have Failed you…An Open letter to the Spirit of Roy Jones...

by Yolo

News Item:
According to WPIX-TV, Pedro Jones, 20, of South Hampton has been charged with first-degree manslaughter for hitting Roy A. Jones so hard with his fists that the infant went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital. Police say Jones said he was “trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl.”

Dear Roy,

I am so sorry.

We collectively have failed you.

Roy, we created the environment that allowed what he did to you to happen. We sat and still sit, in our homes and walk our streets each day, feeding the spirit of homophobia and sexist gender roles that provided the psychological space for what Pedro did to you to occur.

Everyday in some way still, we say how “men do this” and “girls do this”. We still punish boys who embrace fluidity in their movements. We still penalize young women who carry assertive self love within their stride; and we label as “freaks” those who express life beyond the socially constructed biological sex and gendered continuum.

We have forgotten that spirit knows no gender. We have forgotten that spirit is ultimately all that we are. And because we have forgotten, and because to many of those who remember have not spoken out, you have lost your life within this world.

We have failed you.

And we have failed each other. Each time we typecast a being’s expression based on gender, or race, or class, or ability or anything else. We have failed each other.

I wish i could say now that you are gone, that something will dramatically change. I wish i could say that the thought of your brown & red body and the pictures left of your smile, would incite us to cast off the chains of gender and hate.I wish I could say that all of us here are wise enough to know, that what Pedro did to you, was only an external manifestation of what someone did to him, and to what he has done to himself. I wish we could find the compassion to call him to transform and not just rot away; a fate that ultimately changes nothing and does little to help him see what he has done….

Read Full Letter @ Selah

The Murder of Don Belton

Another Murder of A Black, Gay English Professor
by Subvert

The ranks of Black and openly gay professors, already not large, has been tragically diminished, again.

Two days after the accused murderer of UC Riverside (and formerly UC Irvine) English Prof. Lindon Barrett was found dead in his jail cell, another Black, gay English Professor has been murdered, this time in Indiana.

Don Belton, an English Professor at Indiana University, was viciously stabbed to death 27 December 2009 at his Bloomington, Indiana, home by Mike Griffin, a blue-eyed ex-Marine who had served in Iraq. Griffin turns 26 next Monday. According to friends of Prof. Belton, Griffin has an ongoing relationship with Belton and invited him and his girlfriend over to his home on Christmas day. A policeman's affidavit notes that Belton, in a diary entry written a week before, had expressed happiness about "Michael" coming into his life.

Griffin, who was turned in by his girlfriend, is now claiming that Belton sexually assaulted him twice on Christmas Day and when Belton would not apologize, he killed him two days later, stabbing him "until he quit moving", with a "peace keeper" knife he acquired before heading for Iraq, according to the police. However, in court today, Griffin pleaded not guilty.

Belton's friends have rallied to the slain professor's defense, arguing that Griffin's claim of being assaulted is nothing short of a dubious "gay panic" defense, used to inflame the public and stir up homophobia. They have organized a vigil for New Year's Day and also created a web page to ensure justice for Don Belton: http://justicefordonbelton.com/.

The site also links to research materials debunking the gay panic defense.

Read the Full Essay @ Subversities

Kevin Powell on the Sean Bell Verdict

The Sean Bell Tragedy
by Kevin Powell

April 25, 2008

I am sick to my stomach and I really do not know what to say right this second. My cell and office phones have been blowing up all day, and people have been emailing me nonstop, to let me know that Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper, the three New York City police officers accused of shooting 50 times and murdering Sean Bell, were found not guilty on all counts: Oliver, who fired 31 times and reloaded once, and Isnora, who fired 11 times, had been charged with manslaughter, felony assault and reckless endangerment. They faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Cooper, who fired four times, faced up to a year in jail if convicted of reckless endangerment.

And that’s it: Sean Bell, a mere 23 years of age, out partying the morning before the wedding to the mother of his two small children, dead, gone, forever. Sean Bell and his two friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, all unarmed, ambushed by New York’s finest. His last day, November 25, 2006, is marked as another tragic one in New York City history. How many more? I once heard in a protest song. How many more?

But I knew this verdict was coming. I have lived in New York City for nearly two decades and, before that, worked as a news reporter for several publications throughout the city’s five boroughs, and I cannot begin to tell you how many cases of police brutality and police misconduct I covered or witnessed, more often than not a person of color on the receiving end: Eleanor Bumpurs. Michael Stewart…Amadou Diallo…Sean Bell.

This is not to suggest that all police officers are trigger-happy and inhumane, because I do not believe that. They have a difficult and important job, and many of them do that job well, and maintain outstanding relationships with our communities. I know officers like that. But what I am saying is that New York, America, this society as a whole, still views the lives of Black people, of Latino people, of people of color, of women, of poor or working-class people, as less than valuable. It does not matter that two of the three officers charged in the Sean Bell case were officers of color and one White. What matters is the mindset of racism that permeates the New York Police Department, and far too many police departments across America. Shooting in self-defense is one thing, but it is never okay to shoot first and ask questions later, not even if a police officer “feels” threatened, not even if the source of that “feeling” is a Black or Latino person.

That is a twisted logic deeply rooted in the America social fabric, dating back to the founding fathers and their crazy calculations about slaves being three-fifths of a human being. And in spite of Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, and other successful Black individuals, by and large the masses of Black people, and Latino people, are perpetually viewed through this lens of not being quite human. William Kristol of the New York Times wrote what I felt was an incredibly ignorant and myopic March 24th column implying, strongly, that we should not have conversations about race in America, that such talk was dated. This piece was in response to Barack Obama’s now famous meditation on race. But Kristol, like many in denial, had this to say: “The last thing we need now is a heated national conversation about race… Racial progress has in fact continued in America. A new national conversation about race isn’t necessary to end what Obama calls the ‘racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years’— because we’re not stuck in such a stalemate... This is all for the best. With respect to having a national conversation on race, my recommendation is: Let’s not, and say we did.” Well, Mr. Kristol, what, precisely, do you think Black New Yorkers are feeling this very moment as we absorb the Sean Bell verdict? Or do our thoughts, our feelings, our wounds, not matter?

“Black male lives are meaningless in America,” a female friend just texted me, and what can I say to that? Who’s going to help Nicole Paultre Bell, Sean Bell’s grieving fiancé, explain to their two young daughters that the men who killed their daddy are not going to be punished?

I remember that November 2006 day so vividly, when word spread of the Sean Bell killing. And I remember the hastily assembled meetings by New York City’s de facto Black leadership—the ministers, the elected officials, the grassroots activists—at Local 1199 in midtown Manhattan where it was stated, with great earnestness and finality, that after all these years, we were going to put together a comprehensive response to police brutality and misconduct. There were to be three levels of response: governmentally (local, state, and federal bills were going to be proposed, and task forces recommended); systemically within the police department (comprehensive proposals were called for to challenge police practices or to enforce ones already in place); and via the United States Justice Department, since any form of police brutality or misconduct is a violation of basic American civil rights. We met for a few months after the Sean Bell murder, divided into committees, then the entire thing died—again. There was a lot of research done, many hearings that were transcribed, much talk of a united front, then nothing, not even an email to say the plan was no longer being planned.

Anyhow, in the interim I spent a great deal of time, more time than I’ve spent in my entire New York life, in Queens, mainly in Jamaica, Queens, getting to know Sean Bell’s family. I was particularly struck by Sean Bell’s mother, Valerie Bell, and his father, William Bell. Two very decent and well-intentioned working-class New Yorkers, who had raised their children the best they could, who were now, suddenly, activists thrust into a spotlight they had never sought. The parents are what we the Black community calls “God-fearing, church-going folk.” Indeed, what was so incredible was how much Mr. and Mrs. Bell believed in and referenced God. But that is our sojourn in America: when everything else fails us, we still have the Lord. And there they were, holding a 50-day vigil directly across from the 103rd precinct, on 168th Street, right off Jamaica Avenue and 91st Avenuein Jamaica, Queens, in the dead-cold winter air. They and their family members and close friends taking turns monitoring the makeshift altar of candles, cards, and photos. And I remember how we had to shame local leaders a few times into supporting Mr. and Mrs. Bell with donations of money, food, or other material needs. While much of the media and support flocked to Nicole Paultre Bell, Sean Bell’s fiancé, and the sexiness of her being represented by the Reverend Al Sharpton and his lawyer pals Sanford Rubenstein and Michael Hardy, the media did not pay much attention to Sean Bell’s parents and their kinfolk at all.

What was especially striking was the fact that Mrs. Bell got up every single morning, made her way to the vigil area, then to work in a local hospital all day, then to her church every single evening. She reminded me so much of my own mother, of any Black mother in America who has had to be the backbone of the family, often sacrificing her own health, her own wants and needs, her own hurt and pain, to be there for others in their time of need.

Mrs. Bell always told me that she truly believed justice would be done in this case. She really did. I never had the heart to tell her that it is rare for a police officer to be found guilty of murdering a civilian, no matter how glaring the evidence. Nor did I have the heart to tell Mrs. Bell that the media and the defense would seek to destroy her son’s image and reputation, that Sean Bell would be reduced to a thug, as an unsavory character, to somehow justify the police shooting. Nor did I have the heart to tell Mrs. Bell that this pain of losing her son would be with her the remainder of her life. I did not share my suspicion that the parade of Black leaders, Black protests, media hype—all of it—was all part of someone’s carefully concocted script, brushed off and brought to the parade every single time a case like this occurred. I have seen it before, and as long as we live in a city, a nation, that does not value all people as human, there will be more Sean Bells.

“I am Sean Bell,” many of us chanted in the days and weeks immediately following his death. Yet very few of us showed up to the hearings after, and even fewer had the courage to question the vision, or lack thereof, of our own Black leadership who accomplished, ultimately, little to nothing at all. And very few of us realized that the powers-that-be in New York City have come to anticipate our reactions to matters like the Sean Bell tragedy: we get upset and become very emotional; we scream “No Justice! No Peace!”; we march, rally, and protest; we call the police and mayor all kinds of names and demand their resignations; we vow that this killing will be the last; and we will wait until the next tragedy hits, then this whole horrible cycle begins anew.

Plain and simple, racism creates abusive relationships. It does not matter if the perpetrator is a White sister or brother, or a person of color, because the most vulnerable in our society feel the heat of it. Real talk: this tragedy would have never gone down on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan or in Brooklyn Heights. I am not just speaking about the judge’s decision, but the police officer’s actions. Those shots would have never been fired at unarmed White people sitting in a car. Until we understand that racism is not just about who pulled the trigger in a police misconduct case, but is also about the geography of racism, and the psychology of racism, we are forever stuck having the same endless dialogue with no solution in sight.

And until America recognizes the civil and human rights of all its citizens, systemic racism and police misconduct, joined at the hip, will never end. That is, until White sisters and brothers realize they, too, are Sean Bell, this will never end. Save for a few committed souls, most White folks sit on the sidelines (as many did when we marched down Fifth Avenue in protest of Sean Bell’s murder in December 2006), feel empathy, but fail to grasp that our struggle for justice is their struggle for justice. They, alas, are Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo, and all those anonymous Black and Brown heads and bodies who’ve been victimized, whether they want to accept that reality or not. And the reality is that until police officers are forced to live in the communities they police, forced to learn the language, the culture, the mores of the communities they police, forced to change how they handle undercover assignments, this systemic racism, this police misconduct, will never end. And until Black and Latino people, the two communities most likely to suffer at the hands of police brutality and misconduct, refuse to accept the half-baked leadership we’ve been given for nearly forty years now, and start to question what is really going on behind the scenes with the handshakes, the eyewinks, the head nods, and the backroom deals at the expense of our lives, this systemic racism, this police misconduct, these kinds of miscarriages of justice, will never end.

Our current leadership needs us to believe all we can ever be are victims, doomed to one recurring tragedy or another. It keeps these leaders gainfully employed, and it keeps us feeling completely helpless and powerless. Well, I am not helpless nor powerless, and neither are you. To prevent Sean Bell’s memory from fading like dust into the air, the question is put to you, now: What are you going to do to change this picture once and for all? Mayor Bloomberg said this in a statement:

"There are no winners in a trial like this. An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer."

No, the grief will never end, not for Sean Bell’s parents and family, for his fiancé and children. But Mayor Bloomberg, you, me, we the people, can step up our games, make a commitment to real social justice in our city, in our nation, and, for once, penalize people, including police officers, who just randomly blow away lives. Sean Bell is never coming back, but we are here, and the biggest tragedy will be if we keep going about our lives, as if this never happened in the first place.

And a long as we have leadership, White leadership and Black leadership, mainstream leadership and grassroots leadership, that can do nothing more than exacerbate folks’ very natural emotions in a tragedy like this, we will never progress as a human race. Instead a true leader needs to harness those emotions and turn them into action, as Dr. King did, as Gandhi did. In the absence of such action, so many of us, especially us Black and Latino males, will continue to have a very nervous relationship with the police, even the police of color, for fear that any of one of us could be the next Sean Bell.

***

Kevin Powell is a Brooklyn, New York-based writer, community activist, and author of 8 books. He can be reached at kevin@kevinpowell.net.