It's Okay, White People, We Can Admit The Truth.

POSTED BY JHW22

When the Trayvon Martin news became a big social media event, I was on vacation in the beautiful woods of Oklahoma - yes they exist. I went to two Walmarts for groceries and was nervous as hell for my car with the Obama sunrise O sitting out in the parking lot. My hope was no one knew what that was. It was creepy. I was surrounded by hunters and obvious Tea Partiers. I felt like I'd walked into the wrong universe.

I am a white woman, so I guess there was no real way to identify me as an outsider -- although, I do look like Rachel Maddow's twin, so it's possible someone could have assumed I was a lesbian liberal Yankee and I'd have been in trouble. I'm not a lesbian but I am a liberal and was raised in New Hampshire, so I was shaky.

But I was lucky. No one sniffed me out. For that period of time, I felt vulnerable. It was my own brain doing that to me, though. No one else.

I read about Trayvon one of the days on that vacation when I hopped online for a few minutes. My immediate thought was, "I can't read that, it's gonna hurt too much". I knew there was nothing good in a story about a dead, beautiful kid. I couldn't bring myself to know what happened because I don't handle grief so well anymore.

After several losses of loved ones in the last six years, and after becoming a mom, I can't watch movies or read books that even touch on a child's death, a parent's death -- or anything sentimental for that matter.

Then we got home and unpacked and I read. I spent the next two days reading and crying and thinking about Trayvon. Thinking I'd had days where I could choose to avoid the grief. His parents had had weeks of nothing but facing theirs. And I got mad. I got mad at a law that allows police to be lackluster, to take the word of a a living man against the silence of a dead kid. I got mad at the man who stalked a child then claimed self-defense.

And now I am mad at the people who haven't uttered a peep. I am mad at apologists trying to make self-defense apply to one person but not another.

And now I am awake.

For years I have read about black men being imprisoned at higher rates than white men. I have read about more black men being falsely incarcerated and later exonerated, than white men. I have read that more black communities suffer from hunger, lack of safe housing, weaker education, slower police response times, and on and on. I've known the data. I was a Sociology minor. I'm a Democrat. I know all of the data.

But until Trayvon Martin was killed and I had to face the sadness and read and listen, I never woke up to the life. The life that is lived by a person who has lived with a system set against him in ways he never knew. In a way society still whispers in our ears but never wants to address.

I have been accused of being a Becky, or of saying the wrong thing when my intent was clearly something benign. I have been stupid and at times in my life, extremely naive. I imagine most of us have thought or said ignorant or fearful things. But we can't play tit for tat or argue over a person's past statements and deeds in lieu of listening and watching current motivation. We can't treat this time as a moment of race-baiting or PC-idealism. And that being said, we HAVE to talk about the fact that Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black. It's okay to actually say it and not feel like backs need to hunch or defensive retorts need to be spit. It's not anti-white people to say it. We can all acknowledge the truth. We, as white people can say, "I don't like that a kid died because he was black". No spite is needed. There's no need to defend Zimmerman's actions because white people are on trial for perpetuating racism by not ever wanting to admit racism. We don't need to find lame excuses or ways to blame a dead kid. It's okay to admit that the President is not being divisive when he says that if he had a son, "He'd look like Trayvon". We don't need to play stupid and act like that wasn't profound as hell. It's alright, white America, to say, "A kid died because he was black and he matters to me".

The Martin family can't hide from the loss and we can't hide from the truth. We can move forward by admitting we are sad and angry and awake.

And yes, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and every vile white person posting at Fox.com, I'm talking to you.

Joe Arpaio Under Investigation for Racial Profiling

From the "No Shit Sherlock" news desk, here comes a shocker!

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's boundary-pushing foray into Arizona's immigration enforcement over the last six years met its most bruising criticism when the U.S. Justice Department said the lawman's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution...

"We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.

My only question: What the fuck took you so long to figure that one out?

The Land of Tolerance

Via Think Progress: ...two Muslim men were removed from a plane departing from Tennessee and set to arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both the men were dressed in traditional Muslim garb, which made the pilot uncomfortable and caused him to refuse to fly them to their destination...

..The irony is, both men, as a local news affiliate reported, were on their way to Charlotte to attend “a conference of imams, where they would be discussing ‘Islamophobia,’ the fear of Islam.”

The pilot refused to fly these men. After they'd been screened. What is happening to this country?

Judge Blocks Parts of AZ Immigration Law

“Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced,” [Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court] said.

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens,” she wrote. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

Exactly. And it's already happened in Phoenix, even before the law existed.

Douchebag of the Week: Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney

McInerney: "If you are an 18-28 year old Muslim man, then you should be strip searched. And if we don't do that, there's a very high probability we're gonna lose an airliner."

Words escape me. McInerney goes on to say that this isn't racial profiling. And he right. It's religious profiling. Why don't we just have all Muslims wear a crescent and star patch on their lapels? That way we know who we're dealing with. After all, it worked for the Nazis.

Plus, there's no way we'd accidentally make a Israeli strip search because he looks Middle Eastern, right? Or an Italian. Or a dark skinned, native born African who may happen to be Christian. That wouldn't happen in this scenario, would it?

Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (Retired... thankfully): Douchebag of the Week.

(H/T Cesca)

Racial Profiling

In yesterday's post, I mentioned Texas Congressman Lamar Smith's outrage over April's Department of Homeland Security report warning of right wing extremism and how he said it amounted to "political profiling," and that DHS is "using people's political views to assess an individual's susceptibility to terror recruitment."

Steve Benen turns the tables and asks, "What if they weren't white guys?" What if the shooting of Dr. Tiller and the Holocaust Museum shooting and the murder of three police officers in Pittsburgh and the Unitarian church shooting in Knoxville where two victims died were committed by... Muslims?

Imagine if James Von Brunn, Scott Roeder, Poplawski, and Adkisson were all Muslims.

What would the rhetoric be like? What kind of legislation might congressional Republicans offer? How many special reports about the "epidemic" of domestic Muslim violence would Sean Hannity host?

How willing would the public be to give up civil liberties to respond to the attacks? How loud would the laughter be from conservative leaders when liberals warned against racial profiling?

As Far As I Know

There's been a lot of criticism over Clinton's 60 Minutes interview and her answer on the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" rumor. She gave a perfectly good answer... except for the ending.

STEVE KROFT: You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?

HILLARY CLINTON: Of course not. I mean that's, you know, that, there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says, and, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that.

KROFT: You said you take Sen. Obama at his word that he's not a Muslim...

CLINTON: Right, right..

KROFT: …you don't believe that he's a Muslim.

CLINTON: No! No! Why would I? There's nothing to base that on. As far as I know.

When I first heard what she had said (I didn't watch the interview) I thought, "Oh, great! Is she looking for a job on the McCain campaign after Obama wins the nomination?" But after watching the interview, the comment reads much worse than the interview.

But it's a painstaking process to find a video other than on the CBS website to see the full Clinton comment. As Jake Tapper notes:

To be fair, Clinton went on to say that having "been the target of so many ridiculous rumors... I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time."

But Tapper also makes a valid point. What if the shoe was on the other foot?

Let's try just one of any number of ridiculous anti-Clinton smears.

HYPOTHETICAL STEVE KROFT: You don't believe that Senator Clinton killed Vince Foster?

HYPOTHETICAL BARACK OBAMA: Of course not. I mean that's, you know, that, there is no basis for that. You know, I take her on the basis of what she says, and, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that.

HYPOTHETICAL KROFT: You said you take Sen. Clinton at her word that she didn't kill Vince Foster...

HYPOTHETICAL OBAMA: Right, right..

HYPOTHETICAL KROFT: …you don't believe that she killed Vince Foster.

HYPOTHETICAL OBAMA: No! No! Why would I? There's nothing to base that on. As far as I know.

Food for thought, isn't it? Yes, Clinton probably should have kept the "As far as I know" comment to herself. But these politicians are so scutinized by what they they say, it was probably an automatic thing for her, not wanting to get caught in a game of "gotcha" in so many other instances of reporters pressing a question.

Yes I'm making an excuse for her, I'm not a Hillary fan and I am an Obama supporter. The comment is much ado about nothing, although hypersensitive people won't take it as such. The one thing she should have said, as Obama touched on in his portion of the interview should have gone something like this:

"This is a prejudice attack that we shouldn't stand for as a nation. Barack Obama is not a Muslim. But would it make a difference if he was? Would you be asking me the same question if he were Jewish? Or Greek Orthodox? Or Hindu? This rumor is not only an insult to Barack, but an insult to all Muslims everywhere who are being stereotyped and perpetrated as terrorists just because their religion is the same as that of opportunistic extremists. Would we be targeting all Roman Catholics because of Timothy McVeigh?"

But she didn't say that.

As far as those intrepid "journalists" out there, why don't you ask John McCain if he'll reject and denounce religious extremist John Hagee's endorsement and if not, does that mean that McCain believes the Catholic Church is a "great whore" or if he believes "that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that" instead of having a barbeque with a man you're supposed to be reporting about objectively?

Naomi Klein: Islamophobia - Updated

Klein has a great article in the Nation Magazine regarding the Obama Muslim smear tactics and questions not the right of him to challenge the false allegations, but the silence by Obama and others in condemning anti-Muslim racism. If the attacks were smearing Obama for being, oh, let's say Jewish, would there be outrage? You bet your AIPAC ass there would be!

Hillary Clinton denied leaking the photo of Barack Obama wearing a turban, but her campaign manager says that even if she had, it would be no big deal. "Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely."

Sure she did... The obvious difference is this: when white politicians go ethnic, they just look funny. When a black presidential contender does it, he looks foreign. And when the ethnic apparel in question is vaguely reminiscent of the clothing worn by Iraqi and Afghan fighters (at least to many Fox viewers, who think any headdress other than a baseball cap is a declaration of war on America), the image is downright frightening.

The turban "scandal" is all part of what is being referred to as "the Muslim smear."...

...Occasionally, though not nearly enough, Obama says that Muslims are "deserving of respect and dignity." What he has never done is... denounce the attacks themselves as racist propaganda, in this case against Muslims.

...Obama has the power to be more than [a] victim. He can use the attacks to begin the very process of global repair that is the most seductive promise of his campaign. The next time he's asked about his alleged Muslimness, Obama can respond not just by clarifying the facts but by turning the tables. He can state clearly that while a liaison with a pharmaceutical lobbyist may be worthy of scandalized exposure, being a Muslim is not.

UPDATE: Good follow up by a Nation reader-

02/28/2008 @ 4:28pm

While Naomi Klein's point is well taken--being called Muslim should not be considered a slander--I think she is not giving enough credit to Obama, nor is she putting these false rumors in the proper context.

In terms of Obama's response, he has not just said that Muslims deserve respect, he has also--on a number of occasions--spoken out against the scapegoating of Muslims, along with the scapegoating of immigrants and gay people. While not an explicit repudiation of the notion that being called Muslim is a slander, it is pretty darn close.

And in terms of the context: the subtext of these rumors about Obama's religion is that he is a "Manchurian candidate" who supports Islamic extremism and terrorism. This is also the subtext of the stories about the Nation of Islam, Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground and Obama's supposedly "racist" church. The claim that he is Muslim is rarely made in isolation from these other claims, and therefore should not be considered in isolation from this broader--truly slanderous--context.

Amanda Armstrong
Chicago, IL

Operation Lucky Bag?

What the hell is the New York Police Department thinking? As a crime prevention initiative, undercover cops are planting wallets, iPods, cell phones or purses in public areas. If you pick it up, you are immediately swarmed upon by police, frisked and your background is checked for prior arrests. So unless the police determine that you are making an effort to immediately return the item to a lost and found or to the person you think lost the item, you are guilty until proven innocent.

While riding in the New York subway, Carlos Alayo found a wallet sitting on an empty bench. In a hurry to get to a meeting, Alayo picked up the wallet and said he was going to check it for ID later. Before he knew it he was being frisked by police.

It turns out the wallet was planted by New York City police as part of "Operation Lucky Bag," a decoy operation involving planted wallets and undercover officers watching how bystanders react.

I have three questions: 1-How the fuck are you supposed to figure out who the item belongs to within a minute or so? 2 - What genius thought up of the "Lucky Bag" name? and 3 - Isn't this entrapment?

The police don't think so.

...the NYPD defends the practice. "Entrapment is forcing you to commit a crime, putting you in a position of giving you no choice. And here you have choices all along the way," said New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Not really, Brownie. The only choices you have are to pick it up or ignore it and walk away. You eliminate all other choices before they have a chance to be made. So in my estimation, the whole program is eroding what little community unity there is left in New York City and detering good samaritans from helping their fellow man for fear of it being a cheap sting operation.

This is completely different from the old stings where a "drunk" undercover cop would stagger around or pretend to be asleep on a bench with his wallet hanging out of his pocket, provoking unsuspecting would-be pickpockets to commit a crime.

Am I presumed a criminal for picking up a lost item?

A spokesperson for the New York Civil Liberties Union, Maggie Gram, said of the Lucky Bag operation: “It’s a sting that reeks of entrapment. There’s enough criminal activity without the cops inventing it.”

Granted, there are people who will take the item and keep it. But from personal experience, I can't tell you how many times I've found wallets or cell phones and found their owner after a little investigative work and returned the lost item. Now I'll have to think twice before doing a good deed.

I also can't help but wonder if the police would have been so quick to frisk Mr. Ayalo had his name been John Smith.