All things Racist...USA edition (3 Viewers)

[Farb]

I was looking for a place to put this so we could discuss but didn't really find a place that worked so I created this thread so we can all place articles, experiences, videos and examples of racism in the USA.

This is one that happened this week. The lady even called and filed a complaint on the officer. This officer also chose to wear the body cam (apparently, LA doesn't require this yet). This exchange wasn't necessarily racist IMO until she started with the "mexican racist...you will never be white, like you want" garbage. That is when it turned racist IMO

All the murderer and other insults, I think are just a by product of CRT and ACAB rhetoric that is very common on the radical left and sadly is being brought to mainstream in this country.

Another point that I think is worth mentioning is she is a teacher and the sense of entitlement she feels is mind blowing.

https://news.yahoo.com/black-teacher-berates-latino-la-221235341.html

 

[Optimus Prime]

Although the disparity in the number of overall deaths reported between Black and white Americans has narrowed over the course of the last 75 years, researchers say that the same does not hold true for infants.

Black infants are dying at twice the rate of white infants – and it’s largely thanks to healthcare inequality.

“This is like a red alarm,” Harvard University associated professor Dr. Soroush Saghafian explained.

“Our findings are saying: Look, we could have saved five million Black Americans if they had the same things as white Americans have,” he told The Harvard Gazette……..

More Black babies are dying than white infants. Scientists blame inequality

Researchers say five million Black Americans could have been saved since the 1950s if their mortality rates were equal to those of white Americans

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

A video from a dance competition in Hartford last week has gone viral. The video shows a dance coach hugging a group of dancers after accepting an award, but not hugging the one Black student in the group.

The dance studio is called Dance Xpressions and is located in Plainville.

Melissa Breglia is the mother of 6-year-old Shaniah, the dancer who was left out of the hug.

“[The coach] gave everybody else a hug except for Shaniah,” Breglia said. “Shaniah came up to me, and said, mommy, how come [the coach] didn’t give me a hug? She hugged everybody else. She said, 'mommy, I did all my moves, I smiled the whole time…and I didn’t get a hug, but they did.'”

Breglia said she approached the dance coach in a dressing room after the incident.

“I went up to [her] and said, 'how dare you? How dare you make my child feel less than?' She instantly stiffened up and said, 'I didn’t do anything, why are you yelling at me?' I said, 'you had her standing on the stage alone. She leaned in to hug you, and you side stepped her.' She said, 'I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything to her.'”

After the competition, Breglia said she worried she had overreacted, until another audience member sent her a video of the interaction on stage.

Breglia posted it to her TikTok, and it has been viewed more than four million times.

“Afterwards I really thought that I was overreacting in what I saw, until I saw the video and realized everything I’m feeling is valid, and everything my daughter is feeling is valid,” Breglia said.

The dance studio now has dozens of negative reviews on Yelp from people all over the country. Their social media accounts can no longer be found, and their phone’s voicemail was full when NBC Connecticut attempted to reach them.

Breglia said her daughters were removed from the program.

“I got a letter…dismissing my child, my children, from the program. That I had been aggressive with staff,” she said. “At no point in time was there a conversation about your actions, an apology towards my daughter, there was no acknowledgement that anything was wrong.”……..

Viral video shows Black student left out of hug at dance competition in Hartford

A video from a dance competition in Hartford last week has gone viral. The video shows a dance coach hugging a group of dancers after accepting an award, but not hugging the one Black student in the group. The dance studio is called Dance Xpressions and is located in Plainville. Melissa Breglia...

www.nbcconnecticut.com

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

I couldn't read the story from NOLA.com but, considering the source of this post, I can't believe it was a very flattering story.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Texas police ticketed a pregnant Black woman for allegedly walking on the wrong side of the road while she was looking for her dog in an incident she calls “an excessive force of power,” according to reports.

Akia Townes was trying to retrieve her dog just two houses down from where she lives, walking on the right side of Madison Boulevard in Groves on Wednesday when police approached her.

"Two cops stopped me. They walked out with their hands on their guns, and then they asked me to see my ID," Townes told KFDM.


Brad Townes, her husband who is white, started filming his wife’s exchange with law enforcement on his phone. “Can’t walk while Black in Groves,” he can be heard repeatedly saying in the video as he captured officers talking to his wife.

“They got crackheads, robbers, all this other stuff but they want to arrest a Black person — a pregnant Black woman — for looking for her dog,” she says in the video to her husband as she stands between two officers.…….

Pregnant black woman ticketed for walking on the wrong side of the road in Texas

‘They got crackheads, robbers, all this other stuff but they want to arrest a Black person — a pregnant Black woman — for looking for her dog,’ Akia Townes said as she was confronted

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Really?
======
A former Democratic political candidate from Texas has pleaded guilty after being accused of using fake social media accounts to hurl racist abuse at himself and his boss to gain voter sympathy in their respective races.

Taral Patel, 31, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of misrepresentation of identity by a candidate, according to the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office. He agreed to a two-year probation and to complete 200 community service hours.

Patel, who ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner in November last year, also admitted to committing one of the misdemeanors along with Fort Bend County Judge KP George in 2022 when he was vying for re-election. Patel was George’s chief of staff at the time. George denies any wrongdoing.

The investigation into Patel began in September 2023 when inflammatory messages began surfacing on Facebook, using racial slurs against him and, in turn, calling for support of his GOP opponent Andy Meyers, according to charging documents.

“Was he even born here? Probably communist,” one of the comments believed to be written by Patel read.

“I am against fake gods and their worshippers winning office in [a] Christian Nation,” another added. “I am with Meyers ALL THE WAY because he serves Jesus unlike Patel…”

Patel turned screengrabs of the posts into a collage and uploaded them to his Facebook profile. He also accused President Donald Trump, who at the time was vying to be at the top of the GOP ticket, and “today’s extremist Republican party” of inciting such rhetoric.…….

Texas Democrat pleads guilty to posting fake racist comments to garner sympathy

Taral Patel says he is ‘deeply remorseful’ for the trollish attacks during his Fort Bend County commissioner run

www.independent.co.uk

 

[fooferdoggie]

Really?
======
A former Democratic political candidate from Texas has pleaded guilty after being accused of using fake social media accounts to hurl racist abuse at himself and his boss to gain voter sympathy in their respective races.

is he trying to become a cabinet member?

 

[Ayo]

Really?
======
A former Democratic political candidate from Texas has pleaded guilty after being accused of using fake social media accounts to hurl racist abuse at himself and his boss to gain voter sympathy in their respective races.

Taral Patel, 31, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of misrepresentation of identity by a candidate, according to the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office. He agreed to a two-year probation and to complete 200 community service hours.

Patel, who ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner in November last year, also admitted to committing one of the misdemeanors along with Fort Bend County Judge KP George in 2022 when he was vying for re-election. Patel was George’s chief of staff at the time. George denies any wrongdoing.

The investigation into Patel began in September 2023 when inflammatory messages began surfacing on Facebook, using racial slurs against him and, in turn, calling for support of his GOP opponent Andy Meyers, according to charging documents.

“Was he even born here? Probably communist,” one of the comments believed to be written by Patel read.

“I am against fake gods and their worshippers winning office in [a] Christian Nation,” another added. “I am with Meyers ALL THE WAY because he serves Jesus unlike Patel…”

Patel turned screengrabs of the posts into a collage and uploaded them to his Facebook profile. He also accused President Donald Trump, who at the time was vying to be at the top of the GOP ticket, and “today’s extremist Republican party” of inciting such rhetoric.…….

Texas Democrat pleads guilty to posting fake racist comments to garner sympathy

Taral Patel says he is ‘deeply remorseful’ for the trollish attacks during his Fort Bend County commissioner run

www.independent.co.uk

Interesting note on this:

The man he was running against is my Uncle Andy. My mom's brother. He's been a County Commissioner for years.

When this story went viral and international, and I was sitting in my living room in Canada - with no idea this happened - and hearing "Andy Meyers, Fort Bend County Commissioner" - my mind was blown.

When Uncle Andy came to town this summer for my dad's funeral, he stayed with us for a bit and we got the WHOOOOOOLE scoop.

I'm telling you it's so much wilder than what was reported. Bonkers. Like Netflix series nuts.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Maternal deaths have recently dropped in the US – that is, unless you’re Black.

Black women continue to face the highest rates of maternal mortality in our country. To be Black, pregnant and hopeful in the US is to hold on to life with a fierce and unyielding grip against devastating odds.

Black women are navigating pregnancies in a healthcare system that too often ignores our pain, dismisses our concerns, fails to value our lives and underserves us throughout the entire journey to motherhood. As we mark Black maternal health week, the path to becoming a mom remains fraught with pain points for Black women.

For too many Black women, the journey to motherhood may start with dismissive doctors and racially motivated mistreatment: a soon-to-be mother’s voice is silenced in the very spaces meant to protect her health.

The experience of giving birth is compounded by systemic inequities that compromise her safety and dignity.

Stillbirth and miscarriage rates remain disproportionately high due to inadequate prenatal support, while unequal pain treatment leaves Black mothers suffering in silence – ignored or under-treated.

A heightened tendency for unnecessary C-sections reflects deep-rooted biases in medical decision-making, exacerbated by implicit racial bias.

When the baby is born, the postpartum period is often marked by systemic gaps in care that leave Black women vulnerable to physical, emotional and financial strain.

Limited access to postpartum mental health support means many struggle with anxiety and depression without adequate professional guidance, worsening the already heightened maternal mortality rates among Black women.

The absence of comprehensive postpartum resources leaves Black mothers navigating recovery, newborn care and maternal health largely on their own, reinforcing a cycle of isolation and inequity…….

Black maternal health is about more than survival – it’s about thriving | Venice Haynes

Too often, healthcare ignores our pain and fails to value our lives. But communities are banding together to meet our needs

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

They were stripped of their clothes and scrubbed with lye soap. Matrons cut their long hair. Speaking their tribal language could lead to a beating.

Taken from their homes on reservations, Native American children — some as young as 5 — were forced to attend Indian boarding schools as part of an effort by the federal government to wipe out their languages and culture and assimilate them into White society.

For nearly 100 years, from the late 1870s until 1969, the U.S. government, often in partnership with churches, religious orders and missionary groups, operated and supported more than 400 Indian boarding schools in 37 states, according to the first investigation into the schools by the U.S. Interior Department.

Government officials and experts estimate that tens of thousands of Native children attended the schools over several generations, though no one knows the exact number.

Thousands are believed to have died at the schools. Many others were sexually assaulted, physically abused or emotionally traumatized.

Now a reckoning is underway as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe whose grandparents were stolen from their homes and sent to boarding schools, tours the country to expose the devastating legacy of the schools on families and tribes.

At the same time, a major nonprofit group, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, is collecting tens of thousands of documents on Indian boarding schools to build an interactive, digital archive that is expected to launch later this year.

“We made it through this Indian holocaust,” said Deborah Parker, chief executive of the Healing Coalition and a member of the Tulalip Tribes. “We made it to a place right now where we can finally talk about this pain and find enough strength to just stand up and say that our lives mattered and the lives of our children mattered.”

The Washington Post talked to four survivors of Indian boarding schools who attended the institutions in the late 1940s and 1950s and are now in their 70s and 80s. Some have never spoken publicly about their experiences, which left them deeply scarred.

One 86-year-old Kiowa recounted being sodomized by another student at age 10. A 72-year-old Sioux described being snatched from her first-grade classroom by two strangers in suits and driven to a South Dakota boarding school, with no chance to say goodbye to her family.

An Alaska Native man said he spent six years being referred to by a number instead of his tribal name. A Chippewa woman remembers watching her mother cry as she climbed aboard a green bus bound for a school 100 miles from her home. She was 7 years old.

Here are their stories.................

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/08/07/indian-boarding-school-survivors-abuse-trauma/

Mary Annette Pember will publish her first book, Medicine River, on Tuesday. She signed to write it in 2022 but feels she really started work more than 50 years ago, “before I could even write, when I was under the table as a kid, making these symbols that were sort of my own”.

A citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe, Pember is a national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today. In Medicine River, she tells two stories: of the Indian boarding schools, which operated in the US between the 1860s and the 1960s, and of her mother, her time in such a school and the toll it took.

“My mother kind of put me on this quest from my earliest memory,” Pember said. “I’ve always known I would somehow tell her story.”

More than 400 Indian boarding schools operated on US soil. Vehicles for policies of assimilation, perhaps better described as cultural annihilation, the schools were brutal by design. Children were not allowed to speak their own language or practice religions and traditions. Discipline was harsh, comforts scarce. As described by Richard Henry Pratt, an army officer and champion of the project, the aim was to “kill the Indian in him, and save the man”.


In the 1930s, Pember’s mother, Bernice Rabideaux, was sent with her siblings to St Mary’s Catholic Indian boarding school, on the Ojibwe reservation in Odanah, Wisconsin. Bernice was marked for life.

On the page, Pember describes how as a young child she responded to her mother’s dark moods by hiding under the kitchen table, making her symbols on its underside.

But she also writes about how her mother’s “terrible stories” about the “Sisters School”, about psychological and physical abuse, helped form a bond that never broke.…….

For Pember, publication day will not be without a certain irony. As Medicine River was written, the federal government finally engaged, to some extent, with the Indian boarding schools and their lasting harms.

Last year brought an investigative report, identifying at least 973 student deaths (the Post found more than 3,100), and a presidential apology, delivered by Joe Biden alongside Deb Haaland, the first indigenous secretary of the interior.

But as Medicine River comes out, Donald Trump is back, assaulting federal agencies with staffing and budget cuts, seeking to obliterate recognition of America’s racist past……..

The devastating legacy of Native boarding schools: ‘no way people can apologize it away’

Mary Annette Pember’s expansive and shocking book Medicine River looks at the many ways that the US has tried to dehumanise and eradicate Native families

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

I’ve known this but still crazy (yet unsurprising) that it happened
===============================

Since it began airing in the fall of 1969, Sesame Street has become an indelible part of millions of children's formative years. Using a cast of colorful characters like Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Oscar the Grouch, along with a curriculum vetted by Sesame Workshop's child psychologists and other experts, the series is able to impart life lessons and illustrate educational tools that a viewer can use throughout their adolescence. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone—even Oscar—who would take issue with the show’s approach or its mission statement.

Yet that’s exactly what happened in early 1970, when a board of educational consultants in Mississippi gathered, polled one another, and decided that Sesame Street was too controversial for television……..

When Mississippi Once Banned <em>Sesame Street</em>

'Sesame Street' ran into problems during its first season in 1970 when a small group of Mississippi television consultants decided it was too controversial. The reason? Black cast members.

www.mentalfloss.com