Tag Archives | Racism

Inside Paris’s Belle Époque-Era Human Zoo

By on April 30, 2013 in News 0

human zooMessy Nessy Chic on a surreal symbol of the history of colonialism — the human zoo:

In the furthest corner of the Vincennes woods of Paris lies the remains of what was once a public exhibition to promote French colonialism over 100 years ago and what we can only refer to today as the equivalent of a human zoo.

In 1907, six different villages were built in the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale, representing all corners of the French colonial empire at the time– Madagascar, Indochine, Sudan, Congo, Tunisia and Morocco. The villages and their pavillions were built to recreate the life and culture as it was in their original habitats. This included mimicking the architecture, importing the agriculture and appallingly, inhabiting the replica houses with people, brought to Paris from the faraway territories.

Over one million curious visitors [attended] from May until October 1907 when it ended. Today, the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale is kept out of sight behind rusty padlocked gates, abandoned and decaying.

… Read the rest

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The National Disgrace Of Marijuana Possession Arrests

By on April 17, 2013 in News 0

marijuana arrestsThe New Inquiry, sociologist Harry Levine explains the terrible mechanics propelling apartheid-style law enforcement in America:

Police arrest mostly young and low-income men for marijuana possession, disproportionately blacks and Latinos. In the last 15 years, police and sheriff ’s departments in every major U.S. city and county have made over 10 million of these possession arrests. Most people arrested were not smoking. They were carrying tiny amounts.

Police make so many because they are relatively safe and easy arrests. All police have arrest quotas and often they can earn overtime pay by making a marijuana arrest toward the end of a shift. The arrests show productivity. Making many low-level arrests of all kinds is very good for training rookie police who gain experience doing many stops and searches of teenagers.

There is also a push nationally, to states, counties, and city police departments, to get as many new people as possible into the criminal databases.

… Read the rest

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Maori Dance Ritual Offends Danish MP During Trip to New Zealand

By on April 9, 2013 in News 0

A member of Denmark’s parliament has expressed offense and revulsion over the welcome she was given by New Zealand officials on a recent visit to that country. Marie Krarup described her arrival at a New Zealand military installation:

When we came to a naval base, we were not received with a handshake or salute by uniformed men as usual. No, we were welcomed with a Maori dance ritual, with a half-naked man in grass skirt, shouting and screaming in Maori. It’s a mystery to me how the poor naval officers could endure both the ceremony and the surroundings.

Denmark does not maintain an embassy in New Zealand, however, the Danish ambassador in Australia quickly moved to assuage the sudden controversy that erupted over Krarup’s remark by explaining the New Zealanders are doing the best they can.

These events as well as the specific event during the welcome ceremony referred to by Mrs Krarup reflects for me the sincere wish of the New Zealand hosts to bid me welcome in the best possible way, namely through a Maori ceremony of welcome that has been a tradition for generations.

… Read the rest

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State Senator Testifies NYPD Commissioner Told Him Police Goal Was To “Instill Fear” In Minorities

By on April 4, 2013 in News 0

Is one purpose of the NYPD’s controversial and wide-ranging “Stop and Frisk” policy to instill entire communities with the feeling of a military occupation? Via Gothamist:

A federal trial challenging the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk is currently underway in federal court in Manhattan, and today a State Senator testified that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly once admitted to him that stop-and-frisk targeted blacks and Hispanics—and that the policy was intended to “instill fear.”

State Sen. Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who is also a former police captain, testified that during a meeting with Kelly in 2010, he complained to the commissioner that stop-and-frisk disproportionally impacted blacks and Hispanics. Adams says Kelly responded that “he targeted or focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that any time they leave their homes they could be targeted by police.” Adams testified that he told Kelly that was illegal.

… Read the rest

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An Insane Brochure For The Ku Klux Klan Texas Summer Camp

By on March 11, 2013 in News 15

Via the Duke University Libraries collection, in the 1920s in Rockport, TX, the Ku Klux Klan offered a beachfront getaway resort dubbed the Kool Koast Kamp, hosted by “the Grand Dragon of the Realm of Texas,” which offered “family recreation under high-class moral conditions” for both Klansmen and their non-Klansmen friends, who were encouraged to attend for recruiting purposes.

The Rockport beach is “shaded for complexion protection,” the camp guide explains, promising “the Healthiest road to the Koolest Summer”. No word is given on what would become of any nonwhites that showed up with towels and beach umbrella in tow.

… Read the rest

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Yes, Chief Justice Roberts, the South is More Racist

By on March 2, 2013 in News 15

Voting Rights Act Section 5's Covered Jurisdictions, which are More Racist

When Wednesday John Roberts and the solicitor general questioned whether any southern concentration of racism was a rationale for Voting Rights Act Section 5′s constitutionality, cynics responded as though the chief justice was blind to a vicious national legacy. One American Prospect article — leaning on a 2005 analysis that concluded the U.S. South was especially racist — was redistributed through Twitter at least 300 times over a day.

The American Journal of Political Science analysis, aforementioned, “Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South [PDF],” concluded “the regional gap in racial conservatism has not closed since [the end of the Civil Rights era.]”

The exchange between the justice and administration lawyer was in the context of a Supreme Court challenge to the decades-old Voting Rights Act, by Alabama’s Shelby County — a challenge on whether mostly southern states, due to Section 5′s “preclearance requirements,” should have to run voting-law changes by authorities in Washington.… Read the rest

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A Manifesto Against Truth

By on December 22, 2012 in News 2

Picture: Ardfern (CC)

Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph.D, writing in Psychology Today, from 2011:

The problem with truth is that it can be just as destructive as a lie, sometimes more so.

This is self-evident for most adults. That’s why we have the concept and vocabulary of a “white lie” (and yes, even our language has racist overtones).

Yet, when it comes to racism and anti-Semitism, “truth” and “facts” are frequently assumed to trump any other argument. They don’t.

Consider this a manifesto against truth.

Don’t get me wrong: I like verifiable, data-supported facts as much as the next person, perhaps more than many, given my training and background in research.  Even so, I have issues with “truth” — serious issues.

Here are my Top 3:

#1 There is rarely a single truth. Philosophers have long observed that our reality — our “truth” — is strongly influenced (if not outright determined) by one’s perspective or point of view.

… Read the rest

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A Politician’s Attempts to Disconnect from his Online Life of White Supremacy

By on December 14, 2012 in News 4

“They can have my guns, bullets first.”

We’re coming into a generation of leaders who will have grown up on the internet and know no world without it.

What will happen to our online pasts when we all have a lifetime of potentially shameful Facebook pictures, forum posts and tweets to hide? In 2030, how much will a politician have to pay to have his extensive online past scrubbed? Will it even be possible to clean your past completely? Will a future candidate for President live in fear of old blogs and ancient forum posts coming back to haunt him or her?

At least the old IRC chat logs are gone forever, right? Right?

In 2005, Doug Hanks ran as a Republican for a seat on the City Council of Charlotte, North Carolina. Doug was 36, a relatively young age in the traditionally wrinkled world of politics. He had been using the internet for years.… Read the rest

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Does Opposition to the EU’s Plan for a ‘New World Order’ Make You a Bad Parent?

By on November 25, 2012 in News 8

Picture: DieScreamie (CC)

“We all got a gang mentality. Republicans are f—ing idiots. Democrats are f—ing idiots. Conservatives are idiots and liberals are idiots. Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear the issue is a f—ing fool. Everybody, nah, nah, nah, everybody is so busy wanting to be down with a gang! I’m a conservative! I’m a liberal! I’m a conservative! It’s bull—t! Be a f—ing person. Listen. Let it swirl around your head. Then form your opinion. No normal decent person is one thing.” – Chris Rock

Does opposition to the EU make you an unfit parent? Her Majesty’s Government seems to think so…

Curious reports are emerging in the United Kingdom that foster parents have had children removed from their care because they belong to the libertarian[1] inspired UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Disinfo has carried critical articles on the decline of the would-be EU Superstate previously. However, the construction of a ‘new world order’ with the founders of all the world’s major Empires at its heart is viciously, and sometimes blindly, supported by people locked into and controlled by the “left wing” paradigm.… Read the rest

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Victims Of The Army’s Secret St. Louis Chemical Experiments Speak Out

By on November 20, 2012 in News 2

Missouri’s KSDK has more on the previously discussed revelation that the U.S. army secretly sprayed chemicals on families in St. Louis housing projects during the 1950s and 60s. Former residents reveal bizarre recollections which were previously ignored:

Missouri’s two U.S. Senators, Democrat Claire McCaskill, and Republican Roy Blunt, are demanding more information about the secret human testing. But so far, the Army remains silent. Survivors remember and for the first time are sharing their stories in hopes someone will listen and perhaps be held accountable.

Dorothy Johnson and her doctors never knew what caused blisters to boil up and cover her body when she was 18-years-old. The life-long emotional scars never healed and she wonders if there is a connection to the secret testing. Through tears, Johnson said, “They isolated me and I stayed there about a month to recuperate. I lost my fingernails, my toe nails, the lesions on my body.

… Read the rest

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