Month: April 2019

Michigan city moves to criminalize calling 911 on people of color who are just living their lives

Sweeping amendments to a 66-year-old human rights ordinance might make Grand Rapids, Mich. the latest city to try to tackle the epidemic of racially-motivated abuses of emergency services. The planned changes “would make it a criminal misdemeanor to…

Source: Michigan city moves to criminalize calling 911 on people of color who are just living their lives

Smithsonian Exhibit Pays Tribute To Skills And Ingenuity Of African Blacksmiths : Goats and Soda : NPR

An exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art highlights the remarkable skills and creativity of iron workers from over 100 ethnic groups across the continent.

Source: Smithsonian Exhibit Pays Tribute To Skills And Ingenuity Of African Blacksmiths : Goats and Soda : NPR

‘Sea Of Plastic’ Discovered In The Caribbean Stretches Miles And Is Choking Wildlife – Healthy Food House

Plastic is all around us, and we use it daily. However, the trust is that this cheap manmade material is slowly ruining our planet. Plastic wreaks havoc, and images captured off the Honduran island of Roatan by photographer Caroline Power remind us of this fact once more. The photos were taken off an idyllic island, whose …

 

Source: ‘Sea Of Plastic’ Discovered In The Caribbean Stretches Miles And Is Choking Wildlife – Healthy Food House

Remorseful Felicity Huffman could get home confinement over prison time – Los Angeles Times

FROM SON OF BALDWIN:

Black mothers who used their relatives’ and friends’ addresses to ensure their QUALIFIED children got into the schools in the districts with the better funding were sentenced to PRISON for “stealing education.” SOURCE: https://www.salon.com/…/charged-with-stealing-school-heres…/ (Yes, I realize that Tanya McDowell was ultimately imprisoned on other supposed charges, but five of those years were for “stealing education” and there are other examples of mothers charged).

Rich white people bribed school officials into allowing their often UNDER-PERFORMING children into Ivy League and Ivy League-adjacent schools, and they MIGHT get “home confinement.”

We know why this is. There is one “criminal justice” system for rich people and there’s another for poor people (one that seeks to re-enslave Black people in particular).

Additionally, we know that if they had it their way, Black people wouldn’t receive any education whatsoever as it used to be illegal for a Black person to be educated and now its simply a social and economic custom that many wish to make lawful again.

The prison industrial complex itself is a terrible idea made worse by its racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and rape culture (it, in fact, sponsors those horrors). So I’m not advocating that these rich white parents go to jail. What I AM advocating, however, is that all the Black mothers who went to prison:

1. be freed from prison and have their records expunged immediately.
2. be compensated heftily in millions for their time served.
3. receive free mental health counseling and free medical care.
4. be given the opportunity to have their children attend any school they please completely free of charge from nursery to post-graduate.

Because THAT would be the start of the justice.

Image description: Felicity Huffman seen from the shoulders up, looking to the right. Brick wall in the background.

 

 

Source: Remorseful Felicity Huffman could get home confinement over prison time – Los Angeles Times