Category Archives: Race

Race

13th

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Just watched 13th, a thought provoking documentary. America has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the worlds prisoners. Did you also know that there are more Black Americans in prison now than there were slaves incarcerated under slavery in 1850?

As part of the 13th Amendment of the US constitution slavery is forbidden “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”, and some big name companies like Victoria’s Secret and McDonalds have profited from this.

In the past it was Slavery, The Convict Lease System, Jim Crow, Segregation, and in more recent times ALEC, Mass Incarceration and now Prison-Industrial Complex that have proved to be systemic methods of oppression and injustice that are seriously affecting black communities in the USA.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5895028/

Thou shalt not murder

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Really, Israel, Jews are reputed to be trusted by God to be a light to all nations for their understanding of God’s law.  I’m troubled by what I see happening in Israel, although the times we are living in makes relationships between communities difficult at best.

Just recently, we saw soldier Elor Azaria shoot Abdul Fatah al-Sharif in the head while Abdul was lying helpless on a road. The Military have taken a sensible approach to this and put Elor on trial. However some Israelites see Elor as a hero, and Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to pardon the soldier.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38512699

Abdul – the Palestinian who was killed, was no saint – he had stabbed a soldier, he should have been put on trial for this and served a sentence of some kind – who knows if he was being forced or pressured to carry out these acts. The problem is, no one called for Elor to be judge, jury and executioner – people in that position are liable to make mistakes, and when they do there is no opportunity to set things right.

There are commandments in the bible like:

  • “do not commit murder” Exodus 20:13
  • The same law for the Israelite and the “foreigner” (non-israelite) Lev 24:22 (would the same punishment have been given to an Israelite committing the same act or its equivalent?)

In this act, Isreal is seen to break these commandments, moreo if Elor is pardoned.  Even though Elor was convicted of Manslaughter, his act was an act of Murder.  I see Israel being hated by many nations in the world because of the way it deals with Palestine, and the attitudes and opinions of Israelli people. If the actions of Israel are not made in the spirit of God’s law, and even breaking faith in obedience to it, according to the Covenant with God that religious Isrealites adhere to, then their protection from God falters, they have no right to own the land they believe God has promised to them.

As it is today, they have no temple, their Holy sites are shared with people of other faiths. That’s hardly a ringing endoresment from God that they are faithful.

Therfore the battle that is ongoing between Isreal and Palestine isn’t really about religion, its about something else.  I think it is much more about Israel’s notion of racial superiority, and yes a need to defend the place they live in, but their notion that it is a God given right – I think is empty and worthless unless they give to God what is due to him. For that to happen Israel needs to start with practicing justice and mercy.   Wars just give birth to wars, violence, discontent, retribution, pain, suffering, injustice, pride in a perpetual cycle – and we need to take a pause to consider what as mankind we are really learning about how to treat one another. As the Prophet Amos said:

Instead, let justice well up like water,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible: An English version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B’rit Hadashah (New Testament) (1st ed.) (Am 5:24). Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications.

And as Yahshua (Jesus said) in response to a Jewish Torah/biblical teacher:

28 One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yahshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah [commandment] of them all?” 29 Yahshua answered, “The most important is,

    ‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the LORD our God, the LORD is one], 30 and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’

31 The second is this:

    ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible: An English version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B’rit Hadashah (New Testament) (1st ed.) (Mk 12:28–31). Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications.

Chelsea fans “whiter than white”, get a slap on the wrist

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I was surprised to hear that some Chelsea fans were caught on camera singing racist songs and stopping a black man from getting on a train, yet they received suspended sentences?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38501033

Why does this kind of complete hypocrisy exist in predominantly white societies that allows white people to avoid retribution or get off with crimes they are clearly guilty of? I’m certain that under similar circumstances, a black person would have either:

  • Been institutionalised
  • Been convicted of a crime with no suspended sentence

I’m getting sick of black people always being the victim of white institutional systems, which work well for white people but poorly for people who are not white.  If multiculturalism is really going to work, it can’t just mean that people who are not white can represent your countries national sports teams, have good jobs and material wealth. A principal part in having a fair society is that we all have equal rights to justice. Justice shouldn’t be something black people should continually have to fight for, it should be like the air we breathe – it just is there, we take it for granted – we don’t want to have to be made to frantically grasp for it.

The fear of our potential

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I’ve been deeply troubled by the attitude that the police, especially in the USA have toward black people. In recent times we have heard repeatedly about numerous shootings of unarmed black people by police officers. This has got me thinking about the relationship between black and white people in society, and why racial relations and integration keeps hitting these moments of crisis.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, in its worst form, overt racism, there is a behavioural process within those white people that are affected by this condition, that feeds off the fear of the potential of black people. Objectivity and reason are diminished, and a kind of primal, instinctive inclination to fear takes over producing a type of “fight or flight” response.

Fearing potential can come in two flavours, fearing negative or positive potential. Examining first the negative, and taking people in a position of authority, such as police officers, who work to enforce the law and limit the negative potential of all. In the kind of situation where armed police are involved, we can often see this condition manifest in a path that leads to an inevitable and tragic outcome.

Fearing the positive potential of black people, can be focused around excluding back people in society, maybe in the workplace from positions of power and authority, withholding knowledge, unfair pay, limiting the resource needed to accomplish the tasks they need to do, perhaps limiting their time.

Fearing potential is about control, it’s about preserving a mind-set that needs to continually establish and maintain its own status as dominant and superior, regardless of whether or not that in reality that is true.

Historically, black people have been controlled, victims, exploited, in need, and the whole black community suffers from the effects of the past to this day. Communities in America, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Africa or wherever they are, are not free of the constraints and legacy of the historical events and interaction with white communities that bought them to this point in time.

Injustice in terms of exploitation of natural resources and the whirlwind caused by colonial presences in Africa, racial injustice in the workplace, or a black person shot needlessly, is all about fear of potential. To control or inflict injustice on another to prove yourself superior is no proof of valid power or authority at all, but rather a sad evidence of the fact tha the mistakes of the past haven’t been learned from, but rather are approved and affirmed.

In either case, fearing the negative or positive potential of black people, or any people for that matter, fear feeds nothing but injustice, and indeed injustice perpetuates pain in the historical wounds that society seeks to heal from its past racial conflicts, it reinforces them and gratifies the selfish cravings of those who perceive themselves to be dominant.

Mark Duggan Verdict

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This is a strange verdict, the jury agreed that Mark Duggan did not have a weapon when he was shot, yet the same jury judge the killing “lawful”. I thought what constituted lawful meant the propper adherence to the process of law.

I’m not in favour of treating people like Mark Duggan with kid gloves, aledgedly he was a known figure in the criminal underworld. But at the same time, they way the police handled this case, and the way the justice system has presided over it, in my mind gives further weight to the distrust many people in the black community feel toward both the police and the justice system as part of the British establishment. I think it is right to bring criminals to justice, but it has to be done in the right way so that justice can be seen to be done fairly and correctly. Put fear into criminals by demonstrating good examples of policing and judicial conduct that puts criminals behind bars, not by policing with sloppy methods and judicial decisions that defy logic that inflame relations with the community you seek to serve.

I’ve had situations in my life where people have wronged me because they “believed” something that wasn’t correct, like someone reversing into my car because they “believed” I had parked somewhere else. When you are dealing with potentially taking someone’s life the gap between belief, certainty and reality, if misjudged can have tragic consequences. My point is this, if the police were not sure that Mark Duggan had a gun when they shot him, even though they “believed” he had, why not Taser him instead of using lethal force? In that way they could have still incapacitated Mark Duggan while disarming him. As the police and they have these types of tools available for their use, why don’t they use them? Why isn’t there wisdom enough in the chain of command, or with those on the ground at the sharp end to use the right tools to achieve the best result?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25657949

My verdict: and unlawful killing, and an unlawful verdict!

Treyvon Martin – The Zimmerman Verdict

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My site was off-line when this story broke, and I have only just been able to comment.  I just think it is just totally crazy, if I have the facts of this case right, how Zimmerman can carry a gun, suspect a hooded teenager Treyvon to be up to no good, and that Zimmerman contacts the police because of this – and the police advise him not to get out of his car, but he does so anyway and goes after Treyvon and then shoots Treyvon only later to plead self-defence (because apparently Treyvon attacked him).

 

Zimmerman wasn’t a trained officer, how could he have anything other than suspicions of what Trayvon was up to, he had no legal right or power to determine what Treyvon was doing.  If you put yourself in Treyvon’s place, how would you react to a person potentially approaching you with a gun?  Could you run, or would you be shot?  Would you stand up and fight?  Would you cry for help?

 

Zimmerman basically disobeyed the direct order of a police officer, and decided not to stay in his car but took “the law” into his own hands, and decided to be judge, jury and executioner driven by his own flawed view of the situation.  If Zimmerman had stayed in his car, would his life have still been “endangered” if ever it truly was?  I would answer “no” to that, and if Zimmerman had stayed in his car, even if his beliefs about the situation were proved to be true, the worst that could have happened was that someone’s house might have been broken into, but as he had already called the police to inform them of what he believed to be going on, who is to say that the Police wouldn’t have got to the scene in time to apprehend the supposed suspect?

 

I think it is sickening that this verdict came to pass, and I am truly dismayed by it.  ZImmerman should be behind bars for Manslaughter at the very least, if not Murder, and yet again in the USA, we see black people stereotyped, marginalised and devalued.  Is it really the case that the expectations that white American people have for black Americans are so low that, you can have a black American unlawfully killed and it doesn’t seem to matter to the judicial system because of its inherent white bias which blinds it to the fact that all people, regardless of colour deserved to be treated with equal human rights?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23390975

Britishness, is the colour of your skin important?

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I was surprised to see an article on the BBC News website recently titled “Why have the white British left London?“. I thought that being British was more essentially about things like values, commitment to society, paying taxes, abiding by laws etc.  So why when we live in a multicultural society, do some people feel it necessary to write about this subject in this way?

If the article is really about the aspirations of British people realising their dream of moving out of the capital city to other parts of the country and even abroad, why does it focus solely on white people moving out on London, and not those British people of any colour or race who have worked hard to do the same?

My thoughts on the whole issue with Nick Griffin, the BNP and it’s wider significance

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The political landscape has deliberately been undermined by successive governments who abuse their power and allow the public to be treated with contempt, abusing our rights, and allowing the rich to get richer while we effectively pay for it.

We have a “democracy” but the things the government does, like going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, bailing out banks, and indeed for some of the most important decisions the government takes, we actually have no direct influence over whatsoever. We have a choice about who gets to make the decisions “on our behalf”, but we don’t have a choice about what decision is made. Even when the decisions are unpopular with the public, nothing is done about it, that then becomes the fault of the political establishment for being arrogant and out of touch, and our fault for accepting injustice without enough opposition.

If the BNP feels that the voices of the “indigenous white people” are being ignored, that isn’t racism, its simply blinkered self interest, maybe something we are all guilty of, but politicians are particularly so. We are ALL being ignored by the political establishment, the problem is that our democratic system is systematically and consistently failing US the people who make it work, depend on it and pay for it.

Parties like the BNP can only exist when the democratic system is failing to the point where objectivity, reason and trust have been severely undermined. The anger felt by the public is fed upon by the likes of Griffin who are only really adding wind to confusion and providing a knee-jerk reaction that a significant number of people can identify with.

It cannot be possible that the educated men and women who govern our society can have lost reason to the extent whereby, for example, some MP’s who cheated the expenses system have to pay back a few thousand pounds whereas others who cheated the system to a far greater extent (e.g. by avoiding Capital Gains Tax) are not punished. Isn’t the moral being taught there, that the more you abuse the system, the more likely you are to escape punishment? Look at the bankers too, that’s another fine example. A working class man can be sent to prison for fraud, but politicians especially and bankers seem to be above the law.

It is not correct that the media should portray Gordon Brown was the greatest Chancellor ever when he sold of the countries gold reserves for virtually nothing and totally decimated the pension system. So why do the media do this?

How can Griffin say that London has been “ethnically cleansed”? What kind of understanding or appreciation of history does a statement like that show? Weren’t people killed because of their ethnicity in places like Bosnia and Darfur? Who has died in London mostly because of their ethnicity, white people or minorities? The only reason people like Griffin can get away with statements like that which show a contempt for human life, is because we have already listened to the judgements of people like Tony Blair who are prepared to lie and distort the truth for political ends, even if that means people will lose their lives.

Politicians have to realise that although you can win a particular argument by distorting the truth, there are many more valuable things are lost, such as integrity, the value of honesty and objectivity.

It should be clear that if the only way some people in this country feel that they can adequately express their political views is through someone like Griffin, then there has to be something wrong with the political system itself. We are semi-enfranchised, we have a vote but what is its true significance? Do we have direct influence about the issues that really matter? We think democracy is working for us, but it seems clear that the view of the majority of the people in this country is often suppressed, and because the mainstream parties are not listening or offering anything intellectually viable, people are following unreasoned instincts and drifting to people like Griffin and the BNP.

The media gets hysterical about racism, but the problem is much deeper than the reactionary and inflammatory statements that people like Griffin have as their stock in trade and the media latches onto for it’s sound-bites. “Racism” is deeply entrenched in society in ideological constructs and economic structures, these are much more difficult to perceive, and the media rarely gives enough time to examine the concepts behind why racism exists, so in reality the problems that underpin the very reasons why racism can exist have never truly been tackled. Today’s politically correct establishment are only creating a greater problem for future generations.

In all this confusion and heated debate, what should arguably be the real focus of our anger escapes examination and punishment – i.e. the political system and the political establishment as a whole. We are being deliberately manipulated! We are entering an era of “barbarian politics”, devoid of intellectual integrity, justice and objectivity.