Free Republic

By almost any standard, President Obama defies easy classification. He embodies the temperament and often the deliberative air of an ivory tower intellectual, and yet he clearly thrives amid the muddy fray of electoral politics. He, like many of the youth of Ferguson, Missouri, grew up without his father present. And yet his life experience could not be more distant than that of the typical inner-city teenager growing up in a single-parent household. Given his obviously otherworldly powers of persuasion, it is rare that one comes face to face with the stark reality that Mr. Obama does not know what...

MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC) - A video of a group of teenagers beating a Kroger employee in the store's parking lot is circulating on Facebook. A Kroger employee tells WMC Action News 5 that the attack happened at the Kroger near Highland Street and Poplar Avenue. Accroding to police, three people were jumped by a large group of teenagers who were chanting "fam mob." The group, who came from CiCi's Pizza, reportedly attacked a 25-year-old customer as he left his car to enter Kroger. Two employees, ages 17 and 18, were attacked while trying to stop the fight. Both were...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Springfield police are looking for a group of people who brutally beat a couple in downtown Springfield. Police have not made any arrests. They hope someone seeing the video will identify the attackers. One of the victims, Meredith Cole, says the attack started while her boyfriend, Alex, was working as a DJ at the Outland Ballroom. She said she was approached by a group of men outside the club, and they began to sexually assault her. Cole says she returned inside the club to alert her boyfriend, who then left the club to try to identify who her attackers are....

This week’s Black Twitter brouhaha was over a new University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation study of Black Twitter itself. Like the world, the Internet has self-segregated into different communities, subcultures or as USC calls them, digital “neighborhoods.” And one of the largest — and some say one of the most powerful — of the social networking subcultures is Black Twitter. “Black Twitter is, loosely speaking, a group of thousands of Back Twitterers (though, to be accurate, not everyone within Black Twitter is Black, and not every Black person on Twitter is in Black Twitter) who a) are interested in...

Build a militant, mass movement for liberation! On July 17, Eric Garner, an African American father of six, was choked to death by New York City police, who then went through his pockets instead of calling an ambulance. Three weeks later, Michael Brown was shot at least six times and killed by policeman Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. His body was left in the street and no medical help was called. For more than a week the police refused to release Officer Wilson’s name and turned in no official police report. All of this shows that another cover-up is underway...

Michael Brown: typical teenager who died tragically, or dangerous thug who invited trouble?Did you know Michael Brown was a killer? Did you know he was a devoted gang member with an extensive juvenile record who routinely robbed convenience stores and committed acts of mayhem? And did you know that when Officer Darren Wilson shot Brown, he wasn’t using unjustified force, he was defending his life? The 6-foot-4, 300-pound 18-year-old fractured Wilson’s eye socket while reaching for his gun, and was killed while charging at Wilson to land another blow. If this sounds suspect—if it sounds almost unbelievable—then your head is...

Michael Brown would have been starting college this week. That fact has been weighing on my mind as I watch the Rutgers buses crowd again, as people elbow their way on and off of in a frenzy to get to that very important first class of the semester on time. You have to make a good impression. But as Ferguson seems to disappear in the flurry of the fresh Fall semester, I think its important to remember and to propel the conversation forward: the conversation on race and whiteness. I grew up in a community and culture that actively socialized...

We need a chief executive who can artfully make the compelling case to the country that we continue to be unfairly and unconstitutionally subjugated.Every so often, an incident symptomatic of deeper issues triggers a release valve for collective despair. The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., sparked a movement much larger than concerns about the aggressive policing of black men. The marches and protests are a larger commentary about the economic and societal disenfranchisement of black people and the response to Brown’s death is a coalescing event, sounding the latest clarion call for America to revisit her unresolved original...

You walk down the street, your whole life ahead of you, until a police car comes up behind you. Some will claim that you continued walking, others that you attempted to draw a gun. Either way, your life ends when that officer shoots you to death. For those of you who don’t know, Mike Brown, an African-American teenager from Ferguson, Missouri, died at the hands of a local police officer on Aug. 9. Unfortunately, racially charged incidents like this can and do happen even in Greensboro. “A Vietnamese woman (was) shot here,” said Director of the Bonner Center for Community...

…I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black. My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch. Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero. Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares? One less hungry mouth on the welfare… Changes – 2Pac It's been almost 20 years since 2Pac, arguably the greatest rapper in history along with Notorious BIG, sang about the difficulties of being born black in America, and at the same time about the racism of American society. Twenty years in which nothing...

In the wake of the brutal slaying of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, locals protested and were faced with law enforcement armed with military-grade weaponry. The night turned chaotic, and protesters looted and then burned at least one store, a local QuikTrip. The video below went viral quickly.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)It wasn’t a great moment for the protesters. The condemnations poured in quickly. After a moment’s thought, I posted this to twitter. Jesse Berney @jesseberney Are you a white person thinking about tsk-tsking the #Ferguson protesters over looting? May I suggest a healthy serving of can u not 10:16 PM -...

Hip hop artist and activist Jasiri X (right) speaks during a town hall discussion on Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., and police brutality as Ron Hampton, former executive director of the National Black Police Association looks on.WASHINGTON (NNPA) – During a rousing, standing-room only town hall discussion dedicated to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and police killings of young, Black men across the nation, Ron Daniels, declared, “a state of emergency in Black America.” Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a group devoted to the social, political and economic...

The following items have NOT been stolen by looters in Ferguson, Missouri: Pens, pencils, resume kits, work boots, work gloves, work coveralls, shovels, rakes and Father’s Day cards. Whoever thought through this list certainly saw beyond the shallow, juvenile, inflammatory (so-called) news coverage of the Ferguson mess. Media messages concerning ‘the demise of the gentle giant’ Michael Brown were deliberately constructed to agitate & reinforce biases on all sides of the affair. Yet the issue isn’t race. In fact, there are two: 1) social class and culture; 2) the political/economic power sought by would-be ruling groups. The worst of the...

In wake of Ferguson shooting, leaders of black student organizations hope to raise awareness on unwarranted gun use, police brutality. Racial tensions reached a boiling point last month when police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Among the protests, rallies, police activity and arrests, students at this university — more than 800 miles from Ferguson — have been touched by the issue and are heading to the nation’s capital to work toward change. The Black Alliance Network, a group of presidents and vice presidents from every black student organization on the campus,...

It's the time of year when hundreds of thousands of American parents are shipping their children off to college for the first time. For most, it's a time of celebration. But for the black parents of college-bound sons, the rite of passage has long come with a quiet, unique sense of dread. These parents grapple with a scary open secret: Young black males -- more than any other demographic group -- are haunted by cultural stereotypes that foster fear, discrimination and police harassment. Sending sons away to other parts of the country greatly magnifies those fears, particularly in the wake...

They are not insurgents. They are not enemy combatants. They are not hostile enemy forces. They are not terrorists. They are our Black sons. And I beg you America to stop killing them in their own backyards, in the streets outside of nightclubs, on the phone talking to their girlfriend, and a few blocks from convenience stores from which they may or may not have stolen cigars. They do not deserve to die for such trivial incidents. America, the young Black men you kill are our future and potential scientists and doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs; they are our future bus...

It is inaccurate for newscasters to say, “In the aftermath of the recent racial turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., calm and peace has now been restored.” Peace is not the absence of violence, war, inhumanity or oppression. Peace is the presence of equality, empowerment and justice. The truth is that across the United States of America, in the wake of the tragic murder of unarmed 18-year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, there are still raised emotions, traumatic stress, and serious racial disparities. Because of the murders of Trayvon Martin, Eric Gardner, Michael Brown and many others, Black America continues to endure...

Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that the federal civil rights investigation into the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin remains active, noting “recent developments” in the case. The Justice Department is weighing charges against George Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Martin in an incident that captured national interest. Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges more than a year ago, but the Justice Department is still running down leads as part of its civil rights probe, Holder said. “That matter is ongoing,” said Holder, who was asked about the case during a news conference announcing the...

The 1968 race riots helped to recast the politics of the country. But what happened in Ferguson was not a partisan issue, and it won't be fixed by helping Democrats keep control of the Senate. In the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, race riots convulsed the country. Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Louisville endured the worst of it. Almost 50 years hence, you can still see where the damage was done. Louisville’s West Side, which was an integrated community, is now monochromatic. Some parts of Chicago’s West Side, where the rioting was the worst,...

Activists say Holder dropped the ball on investigation of Sanford shooting. The NAACP delivered 1.7 million signatures to the U. S. Department of Justice a year ago, requesting a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford. Despite the outrage and demands for justice after Zimmerman was acquitted of manslaughter, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to announce a clear answer on his findings in the shooting of the unarmed 17-year-old who quickly became a household name across America. Ben Jealous, the NAACP President who collected and electronically delivered the signatures says...