Free Republic

What the hell is happening in America? Are some people so threatened by the election of Barack Obama that it's open season on minorities? How did we come to this unequal and disturbing place where a white 18-year-old can carry a gun into a grocery store legally, yet an unarmed black teen is killed for being tall? Or wearing a hoodie? Or playing with a toy gun? Many things have been said about Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and so many others. They were using marijuana. They were selling illegal cigarettes. They were menacing. They robbed someone. And, the...

...When the St. Louis County grand jury, after deliberating over whether to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr., decided not to bring any charges against him, it was the spark that reignited the longstanding anger and simmering distrust of the system among African Americans in Ferguson and across the nation. Their "cup of endurance" had run over. The inconvenient truth is that many African Americans see that decision as further confirmation of their belief that nothing has changed since the Kerner Report of 1968, and that nothing will; a police officer who...

With the recent decisions of no indictment involving the police officers responsible for the deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and John Crawford to name a few, America could not be anymore divided in how we analyze these events through our own filters. Current poll data articulates that 65% of minorities believe there is a racial construct within our police and legal system which disproportionately affects minorities while reporting the opposite belief by White Americans at roughly the same percentage. However, I would challenge future pollsters to parse out additional data on party affiliation when polling White Americans because it...

Here’s a look at the future, and probably not that far into it. People will learn two things: 1) That an officer was not indicted for murdering Eric Garner—black, 43, and detained simply for selling single cigarettes—despite the fact that the killing was recorded from start to finish for all of America to see. 2) That an officer was not indicted for killing Michael Brown after Brown had stolen from a store, refused the officer’s request to step aside and perhaps tried to grab his gun, with the officer shooting when Brown repeatedly lunged toward him for some reason, with...

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts every thing you said today.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson And so I will. Not so long ago, right-wing bloggers blasted me for being a liberal sellout for my fierce defense of Trayvon Martin. During George Zimmerman’s trial, my email inbox...

Joe Scarborough is mad as hell and not etc. “Someone needs to tell me why Michael Brown has been chosen as the face of black oppression,” Scarborough said, arguing the left’s martyrdom of Brown mirrored the right’s lionization of George Zimmerman. “There are so many great people to embrace as heroes in the black community, that deciding you’re going to embrace a guy who knocked over a convenience store and then according to a Grand Jury testimony acted in ways that would get my children shot? …That’s your hero? That’s the reason you want to burn down black businesses?…Really? This...

All day people gathered, waiting, daring to hope, that maybe this time black lives would matter. Minutes passed. Then hours. And, as darkness descended on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, the now enormous crowd continued to wait patiently -- trying its best to remain optimistic. Perhaps, despite so many decades of history, black people really could find justice in the American legal system. That such a faith still flickered was, itself, remarkable. Everyone standing outside of the Ferguson police station awaiting news on whether the grand jury would indict police officer Darren Wilson well remembered what happened on February 26,...

Political analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky told AiF.ru what fate awaits city Ferguson after the riots and who is trying to benefit on the death of Michael Brown. November 24th jury indemnify police Darren Wilson, who in August has shot 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown. Acquittal sparked massive protests and riots. The family of the deceased, as well as thousands of protesters, convinced that the slaying was racially motivated entirely and wasn't investigated properly. Is it possible to re-examine the case which is already closed,AiF.ru asked political analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky. Natalia Kozhina, AiF.ru: Dmitry, in your opinion, what are the real sources of...

On Monday night, the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri freed Officer Darren Wilson from the possibility of indictment over his shooting of 18-year-old black man Michael Brown. The prosecutor before the grand jury, Robert McCulloch, explained why the indictment had been rejected: the evidence, both physical and eyewitness, supported Wilson’s case that he had acted in self-defense. McCulloch added pointed criticism of the media that drove the case in the first place, ripping the “insatiable appetite” of social media and “non-stop rumors” driven by it. The initial accounts pushed by social media, McCulloch said, were “filled with speculation and little,...

Reparations, redress for slavery and centuries of suffering, was a major part of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Holy Day of Atonement address in Jamaica last month. It was also the topic when the Minister listened to scholars and spoke to students during the discussion “Revitalizing The Reparations Movement” at Chicago State University in Chicago, Illinois earlier this year. In both messages the Minister spoke passionately and clearly about the Black plight and a willingness to confront the enemy to demand reparatory justice. “When you really think about those who went before us, and the price that they paid to...

The Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists (PABJ) hosted a discussion on “The Black Male Image through the Media” at its general body Chapter Meeting on Tuesday. The discussion was moderated by PABJ President Johann Calhoun and featured four culture, social, media and education leaders who offered their perspectives and suggested solutions. “Black men are special. We are the only group of individuals in America that, when we leave our house in the morning, we have no idea what’s going to happen,” said Father’s Day Rally Committee (FDRC) President Bilal Qayyum, one of the discussion’s panelists. “We don’t know whether we...

Quincy Carson (L) and Trayvon Carson.SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) - Two Spartanburg men are accused of storming a Spartanburg woman's apartment at gunpoint then pistol-whipping her new boyfriend, according to a sheriff's office report. Spartanburg County deputies were called to the victim's apartment about 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday about a fight with a gun. Deputies arrived to find the victim with a knot and deep laceration to his head and blood in the apartment, according to the incident report. The woman told deputies the father of her son arrived with his brother armed with handguns, forcing their way inside....

Taaffe to testify to Grand Jury that he couldn’t be sure “racist call” was from Zimmerman.Earlier this month we posted news that Frank Taafe, a self-proclaimed “friend” of George Zimmerman, was going to testify before a Grand Jury that he now believed Zimmerman had a racist motivation for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. This news came just days before the hotly contested November 4 election in which the Democrats took the same kind of beating that Trayvon delivered to Zimmerman, but without the benefit of being armed. (See: Key Witness for Zimmerman Grand Jury Changes Story.) Taaffe’s Grand Jury appearance,...

A federal grand jury met today in Orlando to hear testimony about whether George Zimmerman violated Trayvon Martin’s civil rights when he shot and killed the 17-year-old nearly three years ago in Sanford, Florida. The timing here is, to say the least, suspicious. A day after an Oct. 30 Orlando Sentinel article first reported the impending session, the Washington Post conceded that “Justice Department investigators have all but concluded they do not have a strong enough case to bring civil rights charges against Darren Wilson.” To charge Wilson gratuitously would enrage the nation’s police. The luckless Zimmerman has no such...

Conservative Black Activists Comment on Washington Post Report that Federal Civil Rights Charges Will Not Be Filed Against Darren Wilson in Death of Michael Brown. Washington, DC - Activists with the Project 21 black leadership network say a new Washington Post report that the Eric Holder-led Department of Justice will not charge Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson with federal civil rights charges in the shooting death of Michael Brown is evidence that the time has come for healing. “Protestors called for the Eric Holder-led Justice Department to investigate this case. It seems to have concluded its investigation. What more is...

In May 2012 FBI interview Taaffe denied any talk of race with Zimmerman.We wrote yesterday about the “October Surprise/Get Out the Vote” announcement by a flailing Obama administration that the Department of Justice will be holding a Grand Jury hearing next Wednesday regarding possible federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. The only named witness for Wednesday’s hearing is Frank Taaffe, a self-declared “friend” for George Zimmerman. Earlier this year Taaffe suddenly announced that he believed Zimmerman had a racial, not merely self-defense, motive in killing Trayvon Martin. This would be more than two years after the shooting occurred. One...

ORLANDO, Fla. - A federal grand jury is expected to hear testimony Wednesday surrounding the George Zimmerman case. The hearing is related to whether Zimmerman violated Trayvon Martin's civil rights when he shot and killed the unarmed teen in Sanford in 2012. At least one witness has been subpoenaed to testify. That man is believed to be Zimmerman's former neighbor, Frank Taaffe....

In this so-called ‘post-racial’ era, Halloween has become a new forum to push the envelope matters pertaining to race, free speech, and being funny, or what we think is funny. We’ve seen the images of the Ray Rice costume – complete with black face and a jersey dragging around a black female doll made to resemble his wife Janay. We’ve seen the image of someone dressed as a bullet ridden Trayvon Martin. We’ve seen the Halloween front yard featuring trees with lynched effigys. I’m pretty sure that an image of a Michael Brown, Darren Wilson or Eric ray riceGarner...

No stranger to controversial statements, NBA Hall of Famer turned sports commentator, Charles Barkley, blamed stagnation in the Black community on “brainwashed” Black people too “unintelligent” to choose education over street credibility. During an appearance on Philadelphia’s “Afternoons with Anthony Gargano and Rob Ellis” radio show, Sir Charles responded to a Bleacher Report article claiming that teammates of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson felt that he wasn’t “Black enough.” Seahawks’ cornerback Richard Sherman denied the locker room racism, telling CBS Sports, “Nobody in here said that. It’s made up.” Wilson also brushed off the story, saying, “Black enough? I don’t...

Low African American voter turnout helped create Ferguson’s mostly white government. Black leaders nationwide are using that fact to get their constituents to the polls.For many African Americans, this is shaping up to be the Ferguson Election. Around the country, black voters are being mobilized to vote in the 2014 midterms with the argument that the death of Michael Brown resulted, in part, from lack of black civic participation. While the population of Ferguson is nearly 70 percent African American, only 6 percent cast a ballot in the last municipal elections. This led to a majority-black city where the mayor...