Sitting down with a hero, and some harsh words for an organization that currently has none.

The NAACP was just in my hometown for their annual conference, and I am hoping that Mayor Nutter didn't give them the keys to the city. If he did, I would like to formally request to have them back.

Needless to say that I am very disappointed with that venerable organization. I will tell you more about them in a minute. But let me start this post by praising one individual and an organization as well.

I will start with the individual, Feidin Santana.

I met him earlier today in Washington, where he was receiving an award, and he was kind enough to give me a brief interview.

For those of you who were wondering who Feidin Santana is, he is the gentleman who videotaped the police officer executing Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina.

I think I heard it somewhere before, but I was somewhat surprised when he told me that English is not his first language. He was clearly more comfortable speaking in Spanish, and I told him that I spoke a little of his first language, but he was kind enough to talk to me in English.

    The first thing you notice about the guy is how shy he is. He almost seemed uncomfortable with all the adoration and attention that he was getting.

FN: How  did you keep your cell phone so steady? Especially with all that was going on. Do you have any formal training with videos?
FS: No, I was just in the moment. I was never trained to so anything like this.
FN: What made you decide to start filming in the first place?
FS: I was just watching them, and it didn't look good. I could just tell that it was going to be something serious. 
FN: Did the police try to get the videotape from you?
FS: No, no they didn't.
FN: Given all that has happened would you do it again?
FS: Yes, I would. I don't like to see injustice.

Some other folks were trying to get his attention at this point, so I thanked him for his time and made my exit.

So this 23 year old hero videotapes the horrific incident, tracks down the victim's family, and gives them the videotape. 

This, in spite the fact that he could have sold the video to one of many outlets for money. Or, he could have taken it to the police. Fortunately he was smart enough to know that if he had, he might have never seen it again.

Feidin Santana  is a hero, and he deserves all the recognition that he is getting for what he did on that sad day in early April, 2015.

The organization giving Feidin Santana his award also deserves praise. Thanks to Santana's actions they have actually adopted a resolution  whereby everyone of their members are to "strive to become proficient with the use of mobile devices with video capabilities as a deterrent to voter intimidation and police misconduct."

Five stars for David Honig and the MMTC folks. As far as I can tell this is the first civil rights organization in the country to adopt such a resolution. This is important, because citizens need to understand that under the First Amendment they have every right to videotape police officers when they suspect misconduct when officers are acting in a public space. Just remember to tell them what you are doing, be respectful, and do not in any way obstruct them.

If you follow those rules you will be fine.

Now contrast this with the aforementioned NAACP, who, from all accounts, were given the opportunity to do something similar and refused to do so. Apparently they don't think it's cool for their members to get involved with things such as police misconduct.

Huh???? Hellooooo, you are the NAACP. This is EXACTLY the type of thing that you should be doing.

And we wonder why every day we see another incident like this popping up all over the country.

If organizations like the NAACP won't be proactive and stand up for the victims, who will?

Sadly, the Feidin Santanas of the world don't just grow on trees.


*First pic from nbc.com
**Second pic from thetimes.co.uk, Santana with the mother of Walter Scott.  

Going along to get along.

I read somewhere that black Americans are suffering from "racial battle fatigue".  Sadly, given what has been happening in our country over the past few months, it 's not hard to see why.

And still, through it all, black folks remain the most forgiving and God- fearing people I know. Just check out the images and commentaries from the people on the ground in Charleston. All that hugging. All that loving. All that praying together. It takes a special kind of person to endure all that and still have love in your heart. (I keep hearing Hillary pandering to a church full of black folks with that James Cleveland quote in my head.) 

A lot of my brothers and sisters here in America are built like that. I guess it's a kind of coping mechanism. How else are they going to survive? Better go along to get along. Don't rock the boat, look down when you talk, and step to the side when crossing paths on the sidewalk.
Lord knows we don't want to set off another racist and have him act out his hatred in a very real way.
Although, given what happened just today in Richmond, Virginia, it might already be too late.   

I think I posted this anecdote once on this blog, but this is a good time to tell it again.

So I am playing golf at this very exclusive course in Gonzales, Louisiana. A friend of mine is a hot shot lawyer down there and he happens to be a member. On one of my visits down there we got a foursome together and he invited us to play a round at his club.

 One of the people in the foursome was the head of the local NAACP in a very large town in Louisiana at the time. One or two of the guys in the group were hackers, so our round was not moving along at a very good pace.

Behind us a group of gentlemen started yelling for us to speed it up, and someone in the group threatened to call the golf course Marshall to have us thrown out. My friend, the member, told them to play threw, but they were having none of it.

Eventually someone from their group approached us and asked us if there was a problem. Why is it, he wanted to know, couldn't our group play faster? This is when it got interesting, because, well, I just couldn't take it anymore. I told him in no uncertain terms to go f*^* himself and that we will take our time and enjoy our round of golf because we were still within the time limits set by the course Marshall. And that if he and his group didn't want to play through, as they have every right to do, they could wait.

My friend, Mr. NAACP, was beside himself. He wasn't mad at the arrogant prick and his friends; he was mad at me for having the nerve to talk back to them. "Wayne, that's not how we do things down here. Would it have hurt to apologize and explain that we have a couple of guys in our group who aren't very good?" My reply went something like this: Actually Alvin, it would have. And if you are the president of the NAACP down here I feel sorry for your members.      

Needless to say that our relationship has been strained ever since. The point is, even as the leader of the NAACP,  he saw nothing wrong with taking this guy's crap. Maybe it was out of fear. (I later learned that the guy was some powerful and wealthy businessman in South Louisiana.) Maybe it was out of  some form of survivalist conditioning or Stockholm Syndrome. Who knows? In his world that's just the way it was.

I don't know. On one level I admire the courage and the resilience of the people of Charleston. And yet, on another level, I just keep going back to that golf course. "Wayne, that's not how we do things  down here." 

Well maybe it's time y'all started doing things a little differently.







 





   

Calling for a Racist Amnesty Day, and a little understadning for Rachel.

There are a couple of stories out there that have me pondering issues of race here in America.

The first one has to do with this school teacher in Texas who went on a racist rant on her facebook page and got fired because of it.

Honestly, when I first heard this story I wasn't as upset about her ignorant screed as I was her apology after she found out she might be getting a pink slip.

Like what is it with racists when they are caught being.... well a racist? You said what you said, now own it.

What this country needs is a Racist Amnesty Day. Kind of like those Purge movies. Just for one day the racists among us can post all the vile disgusting things they want about black people and there will be no consequence.

Clearly there are a lot of things that racists want to get off their chests, and I am afraid that our PC culture is stifling there ability to let go with their racial outbursts. (Isn't that right Mr. Seinfeld?)

Oh yeah, the rant:

"This makes me ANGRY! This officer should not have to resign,” wrote Karen Fitzgibbons, formerly a fourth-grade teacher at Bennett Elementary School in McKinney, on her Facebook page on Tuesday, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. The page has since been deleted.

“I guess that’s what happens when you flunk out of school and have no education. I’m sure their parents are just as guilty for not knowing what their kids were doing; or knew it and didn’t care,” she continued. “I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone.”

 

Fitzgibbons, who had worked for the school district for 16 years, according to the Avalanche-Journal, ended her post with this sentence: “Now, let the bashing of my true and honest opinion begin…GO!” She got her wish. The post went viral, and outraged readers called for the school district to fire her."

 

See, now if we had a Racist Amnesty Day she could have waited until then to post her rant and the school district could not have done a darn thing about it. 

 

But alas, there is no such day, and so....

 

“I let my emotions get the best of me, and instead of taking a deep breath, vented in an inappropriate way,” she wrote. “I am truly sorry. I don’t want my comments to reflect poorly on my district or campus, as the words came from me, not them. …

 

“I am ashamed of my post. As I look back and reflect, I see how hurtful those words sounded. It is my hope that my sincere apology will be accepted,” [Source]

 

Translated: I have bills to pay, please don't fire me for saying publicly what all of you see in the privacy of your own homes.

 

The other story is about this NAACP president in Washington who has claimed the black card.

 

Talk about twists and turns.

 

Usually it's some of us Negroes who are trying to pass ourselves off as white. And let's be honest, some of us have done a pretty good job of it. (Not you Justice Thomas. We know that your ass is black. But nice try.) Read up on some of those Negroes down in Louisiana who have the whole passe blanc  thing down when you get a chance.

 

Anyway, back to this sister....I mean eh... white woman, passing herself off as a sister. Seems she always wanted to be down with brown. Girlfriend even got a scholarship to Howard and now teaches African American studies  at a local college. She married a black man and even declared on facebook that her daddy is black.

 

But not so fast, her real parents have thrown a monkey wrench into her plans.  

 

"Rachel has wanted to be somebody she’s not,” Ruthanne Dolezal told KREM. “She’s chosen not to just be herself but to represent herself as an African-American woman or a biracial person. And that’s simply not true.”

 

Her parents said Rachel Dolezal has primarily German and Czech heritage."

Oh lord!

Maybe she just didn't like the name Dolezal and figured if she went black she could change it to something simple, like Johnson. I mean there is Jungle Fever and there is Jungle full blown flu. Girlfriend has it.

But seriously, apparently the NAACP is standing behind her, because she has done a good job as the president of the chapter out there, and they claim that she is a real asset to that community.

I say good for them. No one said that the president of the NAACP has to be black, and there are certainly members of that organization all over the country who are white. If they feel that she is doing a good job they should stand behind her.

I do have some issues with her, though. Like her taking the scholarship to Howard, and her possibly lying about racists threats made towards her.

Other than that, I say no harm no foul from where I sit. Sure her parents are disappointed, and there are white folks all over the country wondering why someone would give up their white privilege and go to the dark side. I say get over it.

We live in a world now where it's cool to switch gender, so why not our race?

As long as she can pass all the necessary requirements and the Drop Squad determines that she is not a spy, we will take her.  

    

 

 

 

 

 

America dodged a bullet, and Rand reaches out.

Now that we have confirmed that there was a Palin family brawl in Alaska back in early September, and that the Palins acted like a bunch of drunken rednecks, maybe the Palin supporters can apologize to the blogger who broke the story.
 
"The report corroborates the stories told by eyewitnesses — that the Palins appeared at a birthday party in Wasilla, that they all seemed moderately-to-heavily intoxicated, and that some of the family members ended up punching people — but added a new detail: there were apparently two separate fights, one in which daughter Bristol Palin repeatedly punched the party’s host in the face.


The first incident also involved Bristol: according to the report, Track, his father Todd, and his friend Steven Lebida had decided to leave the party after “some guys were talking rudely to his sisters, making them cry,” when someone sucker-punched Lebida in the back of the head. As Todd helped Lebida up, four men allegedly descended upon Todd, causing Track to throw himself in the brawl to defend his dad. (Other witnesses said that Track was the one who attempted to start a fight.)


People alerted the host, Corey Klingenmeyer, that there was a fight going on outside his garage, and he attempted to break up the fight, when an incredibly drunk Bristol Palin approached him, furious that an unnamed woman had hit her little sister Willow. According to one witness, Bristol asked him “Who the fuck are you?” and when Klingenmeyer told her that he was the homeowner and didn’t want any trouble at his son’s birthday party, the following exchange happened:

She then told him he doesn’t own this place and that she will kick his ass. He says then that she hits him in the face.  

He says he then tells her to hit him again if it makes her feel better and she does. He says he lets her hit him 5-6 times in the face and that she was hitting pretty hard. After about the sixth punch he grabbed her fist as she punched again and he pushed back and she falls down. He says she gets up and tries to punch him again and he grabs her fist again and pushes her away and she falls down again." [Source]

And to think, they almost became the second family of the United States.  


Finally, I swear this Rand Paul guy is making a very confused person out of me. I honestly don't know what to think of the guy.


On one hand he is the only high profile member of the republican party who seems to be making a concerted effort to reach out to people of color, and on the other hand he is been known to put confirmed racists in positions of power within his inner circle.


He also criticized the 1964 Civil Rights Act, while suggesting that property rights trumps civil rights. Not good.


But now the man is going to Ferguson, Missouri for crying out loud. And recently he has criticized his fellow GOP pals for doing a terrible job of reaching out to minorities. This is something that he seems to be taking it upon himself to do.


"..Paul said. “I think in the Republican Party, the biggest mistake we’ve made in the last several decades is we haven’t gone into the African American community, into the NAACP and say you know what, we are concerned about what’s going on in your cities and we have plans. They may be different than the Democrats, but we do have plans and we do want to help.”


Well I will be.... A republican politician actually sat down with black people to see if there can be a meeting of the minds, and to see if republican policies can help the black community.  


I know that there was a "blood" moon, recently. Maybe there is a blue one tonight. 

     

Fitting the description.

A few years ago I was at the Miami International Airport waiting on a flight. A middle aged white lady sat next to me and told me that I reminded her of an actor but she just could not remember his name. She politely asked me if I would mind telling her who it was I reminded her of......




Sometimes fitting the description can create an amusing and bewildering experience with a total stranger. Sometimes, on the other hand, it can be dangerous to your health. Especially if you are a black man in America.




Take the case of poor Charles Belk for instance.




"After Charles Belk's Facebook post about being detained by Beverly Hills Police who mistook him for a robbery suspect went viral, the BHPD issued a statement. In it, they both defend their actions and apologize for the "inconvenience."

In the statement issued by the Beverly Hills Police Department yesterday, police say they were looking for the sidekick of the Purse-Packing Bandit. The Purse-Packing Bandit was a woman who carried a handgun in her purse, hence the moniker, and had robbed a number of banks. Witnesses told police she had a male accomplice who would distract other bank employees while she performed the robbery. He was described as a tall, bald, black male wearing a green shirt. Belk was a block away from a nearby Citibank the pair had just hit when he was spotted by police.


Charles Belk—who is a TV and film producer—wasn't in Beverly Hills robbing banks. He was at a pre-Emmys event, working with his client, singer-songwriter and actor Rotimi, KPCC reports. After the event, he went to meet a friend for a meal on Wilshire Boulevard, then went to check on a parking meter before moving on to other pre-Emmys activities at about 5 p.m. It was on his way to that meter on La Cienega Boulevard that Belk says he was stopped by a police officer, then handcuffed and made to sit on the curb.


He was then detained at the Beverly Hills police station for six hours before they reviewed surveillance footage, realized they had the wrong man and let Belk go. During this time, Belk said he was not read his rights, nor given a phone call.
According to the BHPD's release:

"After an eye witness positively identified the subject in a field show-up, police arrested Charles Belk for suspicion of robbery. A follow-up investigation by detectives ultimately determined that Mr. Belk was not involved in the robbery and he was released from custody without charges."

The statement goes on to say that the BHPD "deeply regrets the inconvenience to Mr. Belk and has reached out to him to express those regrets and further explain the circumstances. However, based on witness accounts, and his location close to the bank, officers properly detained and arrested him based on the totality of the circumstances known at the time of the field investigation."
What Belk doesn't understand is why it took investigators so long to just look at the tape and realize he wasn't the man they were looking for.


"I was on the brink of tears... I couldn't believe that they had taken six hours of my time for something that I felt was readily accessible and easily verifiable," Belk told NBC LA.


Belk also believes that if it weren't for his connections, he might still be behind bars.


"If I did not have a friend there that saw me, and that friend wouldn't have called my friend who works at NAACP and she wouldn't have called an attorney, I am convinced that I would still be locked up."


One can't help but wonder if it weren't for the over 30,000 shares of Belk's Facebook post and the surrounding media attention, if the BHPD wouldn't have apologized for the six-hour "inconvenience" at all." [Source] 




Mr. Belk, fortunately for you there were people you could call with connections.


Millions of black and poor folks in America do not have that luxury. What happened to you is their reality on a daily basis.




The Beverly Hills PD do not see a lot of black folks, so, to them, we all pretty much look alike.  




Still, Mr. Belk is lucky to be alive. Had he been reaching for his wallet to reload the parking meter when the police arrived, he could have ended up like a teenager from Ferguson, Missouri.




Fortunately for him, though, he will live another day to produce films and television shows.




I have an idea for the title of his next project: "WHEN FITTING THE DESCRIPTION GOES WRONG."

I sure hope that you Muslims don't need a can of paint.

I have a confession to make: I am not very handy around the house. I am embarrassed to say that Mrs. Field is probably handier with tools than I am.
My philosophy is simple: No matter how small the job, if it calls for a person who is trained to do it, I am giving them a call. I will call the plumber if I have to put on a new shower head.

Folks, I say all of this for a reason: If I do happen to ever need something for my home; you will never see my black ass in Lowe's home improvement stores ever again. Strictly Home Depot from here on out, and here is why:

"Pressure from a conservative evangelical group led Lowe's home improvement store chain to pull its ads from the TLC reality show "All-American Muslim," but now the company is facing calls from celebrities and politicians to boycott Lowe's.

Mia Farrow and Russell Simmons have called for a boycott of Lowe's on Twitter, with Simmons promising to "sic every civil rights agency on (Lowe's) until they straighten this out." He is also urging his Twitter followers to sign a petition -- which, as of 3:25 ET Monday, had 9,660 of the 10,000 signatures the creators of the petition are hoping for -- to urge other companies to advertise during "All-American Muslim."

Meanwhile, California state Sen. Ted Lieu called the Lowe's ad pull "stunning bigotry."

Read more: Taco Bell Pulls MTV 'Skins' Ads Under Boycott Threat (Video)
Lieu posted on his website a copy of a letter he wrote to Lowe's CEO Robert Niblock, calling for the company to apologize for its ad pull or face possible "legislative remedies."

"Lowe's action is bigoted, shameful, and un-American," Lieu wrote. "I call on Lowe's to rescind its action and apologize to Americans who are Muslim. If Lowe's continues its religious bigotry, I will encourage boycotts of Lowe's and look into legislative remedies."

Lowe's, which yanked its advertisements from the TLC series after pressure from the Florida Family Association, didn't respond to a request from TheWrap for comment, but did issue an apology of sorts. The company seems to be expressing contrition that pulling ads made people angry, and not necessarily for actually pulling the ads." [Source]

I agree with Sen. Ted Lieu; it is "stunning bigotry" on Lowe's part. But hey, it probably won't affect their bottom line. I suspect that most of the folks who shop at Lowe's absolutely loved their bigoted stance on this issue. Besides, Corporate bigotry is nothing new to A-merry-ca. (They are people, right?)

Finally, speaking of bigotry; the Big R is trying to throw me off my game again by sending me off on a "wild goose chase":
 
"The Patriot Freedom Alliance, based in Hutchinson, Kansas, posted a photo of a skunk, stating it had replaced the eagle as a symbol of the president because "it is half black, half white and almost everything it does stinks."
The depiction was on the group's home web page on Saturday but gone on Sunday, said Darrell Pope, president of the Hutchinson chapter of the NAACP. It was also not on the site Monday, the day after an article about it appeared in the Hutchinson News-Leader newspaper.

"They tried to pass it off as satire, but it was hurtful and malicious," Pope said Monday. He said the depiction was racist in reference to Obama, who was born to a white mother and black father.

Pope said he did not contact the tea party group about removing the skunk reference but that it never should have been posted in the first place.
A representative of the Patriot Freedom Alliance who maintains its web site did not immediately return phone calls on Monday. Another member declined to comment.

Hutchinson is a city of about 42,000 in central Kansas, northwest of Wichita." [Source] 

Hmmm, the old racist skunk......nope, don't see it. Sorry folks, I have to take a racism chase pass on this one.

Believe me, I am pretty sure that my tea party friends from Hutchinson, Kansas won't be inviting the field over for Sunday dinner anytime soon, but this particular political ad. does not strike me as racist. Maybe I am missing some kind of historical connection with how racists view the the skunk in connection with us black folks, but I just don't see the Big R with this one.

Stay away from the skunk, folks. They won't start stinking you up unless you mess with them.