Racial Discrimination 101- Know When to Quit.

 

          

Omar Thornton and girlfriend Kristi Hannah  

nydailynews.com     

MANCHESTER, Conn. (CBS/WFSB/AP) Family members say Omar Thornton, the man suspected in the Tuesday morning massacre at Hartford Distributors, was a quiet, hard-working man who wasn’t a violent person, but was pushed to the breaking point by harassment at work. “The last words he told his mother were that he loved her and that they just pushed him over the edge,” said Thornton’s cousin.” Omar has never been in trouble before. He has no criminal record” (NY Daily News). The gunman, who was black, had complained of racial harassment and said he found a picture of a noose and a racial epithet written on a bathroom wall, the mother of his girlfriend said. Her daughter told her that Thornton’s supervisors told him they would talk to his co-workers (CBS/WFSB/AP).     

Union and company officials said they would not have anticipated [this] from someone with no history of complaints or disciplinary problems (aolnews).       

Thornton’s friend said Thornton was hired as a driver but was put to work loading boxes in the warehouse and had to fight to get behind the wheel. “He had someone write a statement asking why he couldn’t drive, and that’s when they put him on as a driver,” he said. The company and Teamsters union say Thornton lost his job Tuesday morning after being confronted with video evidence that he was stealing. His friend and girlfriend don’t believe it. Thornton’s best friend, who asked the Daily News to keep his name confidential, said he also used to work at the beer distributor and saw Thornton subjected to racist taunts. “No one should have had to endure what that company put him through,” the friend said. “Stuff on walls. Racist comments. I saw it with my own eyes.”     

“Omar stole beer? The dude didn’t even drink. I don’t know what he would do Hannah said she thought he was being set up.     

 “A few weeks ago, he told me that the company wanted to get rid of him,” she said. “They were looking for a way to get him out of the company and paint him as a problem. That they were going to pin something on him and get him out of the company.” Thornton, she said, was pushed to edge by bigots who wanted to take him down a few pegs. She said she crafted a letter for him to the Budweiser Company – a letter he signed – in which he detailed the racist abuse.    

“He heard people say he got promoted (to driver) because he was a n—–,” she said. “That’s when on the bathroom wall he saw a noose and the words “Kill all n—–s.”     

“Every one of \[the victims\] was a person I heard Omar mention,” Hannah said. “He didn’t go around randomly shooting people. He knew these were the people who harassed him.”    

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/08/04/2010-08-04_kristi_hannah_girlfriend_of_omar_thornton_recalls_gunmans_goodbye_racism_concern.html?page=1#ixzz0vgSvtP8y 

This is a tragic story, and I refuse to become completely desensitized to the rate at which we human beings kill one another. I am posting because I heard a news clip about this incident on yesterday that had a different tone. On yesterday the company didn’t seem forthcoming on all details. But today (8/4)  some of the press was adamant that this incident was not the result of racism. Some of the articles seem to be pushing that fact that he stole some “suds”, another said he stole “cases of beer”, and he was “cold as ice.” when he shot his victims. I did find out that when a noose was used to spark the Jena 6 incident, the use of a noose was classified as a hate crime. I believe that the company maybe doing some damage control. It is hard to believe that this man, who was no problem for the company, nor had complaints against the company,  just snapped, and shot specific people in the company over stealing. It is not hard to believe that this lone black man could have been  a target among his white co-workers. I believe that Omar Thornton may have been broken by racial discrimination because his family and friends provided what could be the underlying cause of this tragedy. I am praying for all families who have been touched by this  violence.

 

 Remember the Jena 6?     

The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight after Nooses Are Hung from Tree Six black students at Jena High School in Central Louisiana were arrested last December (2006) after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The fight took place amid mounting racial tension after a black student sat under a tree in the schoolyard where only white students sat. The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree (democracynow.org). The hanging of nooses in this case constituted a hate crime.     

Other Incidence of Using the Hanging Noose     

 (CNN) – The media spotlight might have shown most intensely on Jena, Louisiana, but a symbol of racial violence has been hung across America lately, spurring anger, resentment and a big question.  Do all the incidents of hanging nooses — many with hateful notes to their intended black audience — reveal an ugly truth about race relations in the United States, or are they just stupid pranks by a few foolish, attention-starved people?     

 Since September 2007, nooses have been found in a Coast Guard office, a suburban New York police station locker room, a North Carolina high school, a Home Depot in New Jersey and on the campus of the University of Maryland.     

 A Brooklyn, New York, high school principal, who is black, received one in the mail recently, along with a letter that read, “White Power Forever,” The New York Times reported. In mid-October, a noose was discovered outside a post office at New York City’s “Ground Zero,” just days after a noose was hung on the office door of a black Columbia University professor.     

 Earlier this week, the head of a black mannequin was found hanging from a noose outside a home in Valley Stream, New York, police said. Beneath the noose, on the mannequin’s neck, was a piece of paper with the “n-word” written on it, said Detective Jeff Schilling of the Nassau County Police Department.     

 http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/01/nooses/index.html Ashley Fantz.     

    How about this story: Office Prank or blatant Racism?     

In a story you will only see only on Fox 29, reporter Joyce Evans brings us the story of Micah Newsome.     

Micah, 27, is an employee at Amtrak’s Wilmington maintenance yard. Last February, he walked into the break room and his coworkers burst into laughter. He says, “I didn’t know what it was at first and then I looked to sit in my seat and it’s a full-sized robotic chimpanzee, dressed in an Amtrak work suit.” The doll, Micah recounts, was being controlled by a remote.  Micah’s reaction, “I’m just sitting there shocked, disgusted, and humiliated.”  Micah thinks that this was no joke and the “prank” was malicious.     

According to a complaint with the EEOC, and an audio recording, Newsome’s co-workers then started to laugh about another incident involving a noose and another black co-worker. Newsome called Amtrak Police.     

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/office-prank-or-blatant-case-of-racism     

 Monkeys, watermelon, and black people  

 by Mary Mitchell

February 26, 2009 1:00 PM U.S. Attorney Eric Holder stepped on some toes when he said we need to talk more. But he was absolutely right. Within short span, we have two examples of racial ignorance—-one from the nation’s largest city and another from a city that is only 2-1/4 square miles. Let’s start with the mayor of Los Alamitos, CA, a tiny town in Orange County. Mayor Dean Grose was forced to apologize after it was reported he sent an e-mail out to colleagues and business people–including a black woman who serves on a committee with the mayor–that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons.      

I’m not sure how Grose expected people to respond, but African-Americans don’t find watermelon jokes funny. All you have to do is research racial stereotypes to understand why. The smiling “darkey” eating watermelon was a popular image during America’s racist past, and was the one of the stereotypes used by Obama-haters during the presidential campaign. Grose claims he was “unaware of the stereotype that black people like watermelon,” and didn’t mean to “offend” African-Americans. But you don’t have to be from a small town to be ignorant about offensive stereotypes. New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch was forced to give a rare apology after a racially offensive political cartoon sparked daily protests outside the newspaper’s offices. The cartoon depicted two New York cops shooting a chimpanzee. The cartoonist linked the rampage of a chimp that tore off a woman’s face to the creation of the stimulus package. Murdoch and the cartoonist both claimed not to know the monkey has long been used as to disparage the intellect and humanity of African-Americans.      

Just about any black person on the street could have told these white males they were about to set off a firestorm.      

http://blogs.suntimes.com/mitchell/2009/02/monkeys_watermelons_and_black.html 

I Thought About Haiti Today.

      

I had been thinking about Haiti, so I began to look for current information on the internet about the progress of Haiti since the earthquake of January 2010. I was fortunate to find some good info about how the billions of dollars of foreign aid were being spent for Haiti. The report said how much money had been used on new medical facilities, water, and food. And how much money was still waiting for the Haitian government to establish sound plans for allocating funds into viable ways to clean up and rebuild.  I felt good about what I had read. I was glad to know that even though Haiti is yet in real trouble, some visible progress has been made. Feeling hopeful, I began to glean the comments that were made under a particular story on Haiti.  I truly don’t believe that I over reacted but, one commenter sounded as if he was blaming the Haitians for some degree of their suffering. His comment was about their poverty and birth rate. He seemed to be saying that if they would stop having children they could pull themselves up out of poverty. I was moved to the degree that I decided to blog about it, because I thought that the statement made, was unaware and unfortunate. The comment did however make me think about Haiti’s history. I started with Haiti, but I found that there are many Haitis, racism is global. That doesn’t surprise me, I just never thought of it outside of America’s borders.

“Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superior to others. Racism and discrimination have been used as powerful weapons encouraging fear or hatred of others in times of conflict and war, even during economic downturns.”                       http://www.globalissues.org/article/165/racism 

The socioeconomic sufferings of our world don’t just happen because a group of people fails to pull their own weight. As I read accounts of history, racism became a means to an end; the end ultimately being genocide and capital gain, then containment and separation. Racism has a pattern, I only read a few examples, but it appears that inferiority is consistently associated with darker skin. The objects of disdain are the darker indigenous people, who are vilified, to justify  their genocide. Religious and political differences can also make one worthy of separation, disdain, and death. I thought the information I found was interesting enough to share.    (Peace was hard to find).

How did the Haitians become so impoverished?  (Read the excerpt).

Racism in Haiti

“The underdevelopment and backwardness of the (Haitian) society has nothing to do with voodoo and a perceived inherent inferiority of the Haitian mind and body, but rather to do with exploitation and racism of the last 200 years. During its heyday as a sugar producer, Haiti was the most prosperous slave colony, exporting to France over 218 million tons of sugar, cocoa, coffee and indigo. The majority of these products were re-exported from France in its trade with the rest of the world. Haiti was the envy of the British, who attempted to capture it (1796), even while Lord Pitt and company were seeking to end the slave trade on humanitarian grounds. Coming at the end of the unconscionable economic exploitation by France, the American military occupation established and carried out the Munroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to secure the American backyard and to make it known to the foreign powers they were not welcomed.”   http://guardian.co.tt/commentary/columnist/2010/01/20/exploitation-racism-keep-haiti-despair 

Racism in Australia

“‘The term “racial discrimination” shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.’

Myths and stereotypes are a key component of racism:

• they reduce a range of differences in people to simplistic categorizations
• transform assumptions about particular groups of people into ‘realities’
• are used to justify status quo or persisting injustices
• reinforce social prejudice and inequality

Three out of four Indigenous Australians experience racism in their everyday lives.

Labeling of Indigenous Australians including stereotypes such as dark skin, despair, levels of alcohol consumption, laziness, levels of intelligence, ability to work and care for children, and levels of criminality are all part of the myths and stereotypes that perpetuate racism in Australia.”  This sounds like the U.S.                            http://www.antar.org.au/node/221 

Racism in Columbia

 Afro Colombians refers to Colombians of African ancestry, and the great impact they have had on Colombian culture. (Wikipedia).

The nearly 11 million Blacks Colombians have been forced to abandon traditional homelands along the country’s Pacific coast as encroaching paramilitary battles have threatened their lives. As a result of the continuing strife in the country, Colombia’s paramilitaries often work hand-in-hand with right-wing forces in the country, fighting battles in a war that began in the middle of the last century.

 Afro-Columbian communities are among the poorest of the 44 million inhabitants of Columbia. Their chronic levels of poverty speak of their invisibility and discrimination in a nation recognized by its Constitution as multiethnic and culturally plural. Despite the legal recognition of territorial and cultural rights trough the Law 70 of 1993, the lack of political will and state governance have made this and other legal resources powerless to resolve the historical injustice committed against the Columbian Afro-descendants.   http://www.seeingblack.com/2003/x032803/colombians.shtml   

Class in India

  The Untouchables

 The caste system in India is a most shameless practice in this world, worse than racism. It was started as a classification on the basis of one’s occupation. In that system, there could be more than one caste in a family on the basis of one’s occupation.  One can change his/her caste once he/she changes his/her occupation. Gradually, those who are in the higher castes wanted to protect their family members from slipping in to lower castes. They, with the help of then rulers built ‘iron curtains’ between the castes. The higher caste people cornered all the wealth, education, and power in their baskets. 

The worst fact was these privileged classes denied these privileges to the so called shudras and dalit castes. They were treated worse than animals. It is these atrocities which are perpetuated on these low caste people which constitutes the vast majority of the population, resulting in utter poverty, illiteracy and backwardness among the majority of the population in this nation. Had everybody been treated equally, India would have been the number one nation in the world by now.             http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-caste-system.htm 

Racism in Africa

South Africa is a country blessed with an abundance of natural resources including fertile farmlands and unique mineral resources. South African mines are world leaders in the production of diamonds and gold as well as strategic metals such as platinum. The climate is mild, reportedly resembling the San Francisco bay area weather more than anywhere in the world.

South Africa was colonized by the English and Dutch in the seventeenth century. English domination of the Dutch descendents (known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted in the Dutch establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State and Transvaal. The discovery of diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English invasion which sparked the Boer War. Following independence from England, an uneasy power-sharing between the two groups held sway until the 1940′s, when the Afrikaner National Party was able to gain a strong majority. Strategists in the National Party invented apartheid as a means to cement their control over the economic and social system. Initially, aim of the apartheid was to maintain white domination while extending racial separation. Starting in the 60′s, a plan of “Grand Apartheid” was executed, emphasizing territorial separation and police repression.

With the enactment of apartheid laws in 1948, racial discrimination was institutionalized. Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of “white-only” jobs. In 1950, the Population Registration Act required that all South Africans be racially classified into one of three categories: white, black (African), or colored (of mixed decent).    http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html 

Racism in Germany

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an ALIEN threat to the so-called German racial community. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143 

Racism in Canada

Unfortunately, life in government-built villages turned out to be a major trauma for the Innu. Treated like children by missionaries and government bureaucrats, subject to humiliating racism by their non-Aboriginal neighbors, punished by Newfoundland hunting regulations, the Innu fell into a quagmire of rock-bottom self-esteem, alcohol abuse, family violence, and other forms of cultural collapse. http://www.cqsb.qc.ca/svs/434/fninnu.htm  This sounds just like America.

“What Survival reveals…has shocked and appalled me. It is clear that behind Canada’s liberal reputation lies a scandal the government is desperate to hide. If Canadians knew what their government is doing to the Innu, they would be astonished and ashamed.” Julie Christie, actress.         http://www.religioustolerance.org/sui_innu.htm 

Racism in the U.K.

And, following the end of slavery, the Irish and African Americans were forced to compete for the same low-wage, low-status jobs.  So, the “white negroes” of the U.K. came to the United States and, though not enslaved, faced a status almost as low as that of recently freed blacks.   While there were moments of solidarity between Irish and African Americans, this was short lived.

Over the course of the 19th and early 20th century, Irish Americans managed to a great extent to enter and become part of the dominant white culture.  In an attempt to secure the prosperity and social position that their white skin had not guaranteed them in Europe, Irish immigrants lobbied for white racial status in America.  Although Irish people’s pale skin color and European roots suggested evidence of their white racial pedigree, the discrimination that immigrants experienced on the job (although the extent of the “No Irish Need Apply” discrimination is disputed), the simian caricatures they saw of themselves in the newspapers, meant that “whiteness” was a status that would be achieved, not ascribed.   http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/03/17/irish-americans-racism-whiteness/

Class in Asia 

But in Asia, it is different. Dark skin is poor, white skin is rich. They promote whiteness because no one wants to be perceived as poor. In Thailand, I saw plenty of dark-skinned people in high-ranking jobs, and their current prime minister is dark-skinned. While they prefer white skinned, they don’t look at a dark-skinned person and think “they are less of a person.” The same is true all over Southeast Asia. Driving a BMW in the West says you’re rich and classy; in Asia, the color of your skin says it.  (dark skin = poor and that is not esteemed) http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/19/white-skin-why-racism-in-asia-isnt-quite-what-you-think/  

Why not leave skin color out of it. If it’s just about class,  let wealth = high class, period. Instead this system says if your dark skinnned you’re poor, and in Asia, according to the article, there are dark-skinned wealthy people. Also with this point of view, an Asian could be as white as a sheet, which signals wealth,  and yet be poor.  This really sounds like a mental health issue. The info. following is something I read, but not sure how accurate it is. Light skin = Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.  Dark skin = Filipinos, Malay, Indonesian, etc.

                                        

May 31, 2010 – A Memorial To A Race Riot Massacre

                                                                             

The Tulsa race riot occurred in the racially and politically tense atmosphere of northeastern Oklahoma, some of which was a growing hotbed of anti-black sentiment at that time–The Spirit of Racism.

(Wikipedia)The Tulsa race riot, also known as the 1921 race riot, the night that Tulsa died, the Tulsa Race War, or the Greenwood riot, was a massacre during a large-scale civil disorder confined mainly to the racially segregated Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA on May 31, 1921. During the 16 hours of rioting, over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 were left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million (about $21.7 million in 2009 dollars) in property damage was caused.  Officially, thirty-nine people were reported killed in the riot, of whom ten were white. The actual number of black citizens killed by local white militiamen and others as a result of the riot was estimated in the Red Cross report at around 300, making the Tulsa race riot the worst in US history. Other estimates range as high as 3,000, based on the number of grave diggers and other circumstances, although the archaeological and forensic work needed to confirm the number of dead has not been performed.

The Greenwood section of Tulsa was home to a commercial district so prosperous it was known as “the Negro Wall Street” (now commonly referred to as “the Black Wall Street“). Ironically, the economic enclaves here and elsewhere — bounded and supported by racial separation — supported prosperity and capital formation within the community. In the surrounding areas of northeastern Oklahoma, blacks also enjoyed relative prosperity and participated in the oil boom.

 On Monday, May 31, 1921-Sometime around or after 4 p.m. Dick Rowland, a nineteen-year old black shoeshiner employed at a Main Street shine parlor, entered the elevator at the rear of the nearby Drexel Building at 319 South Main Street en route to the ‘colored’ washroom on the top floor. Upon entering the elevator, he encountered Sarah Page, the seventeen-year old white elevator operator who was on duty at the time. It has never been determined with any certainty whether the two young people were acquainted, but it seems reasonable that they knew each other at least by sight, as this building was the only one nearby with a washroom that Rowland had express permission to use, and that the elevator operated by Sarah Page was the only one in the building. [It has been written that Mr. Rowland tripped upon stepping into the elevator because the elevator was not flush with the floor. Reaching out to break his fall, Mr. Rowland touched the white elevator operator, she screamed and accused Mr. Rowland of trying to rape her].  A clerk at Renberg’s, a clothing store located on the first floor of the Drexel, heard what sounded like a woman’s scream and observed a young black man hurriedly leaving the building. Upon rushing to the elevator, the clerk found Miss Page in what he perceived to be a distraught state. The clerk reached the conclusion that the young woman had been assaulted and subsequently summoned the authorities.

Whether or not an actual assault had occurred, Dick Rowland had reason to be fearful. Such an accusation in those days, rightful or not, was enough to incite certain segments of the white public to forgo due process and take such matters into their own hands. Upon realizing the gravity of the situation, Rowland fled to his mother’s house in the Greenwood neighborhood. The morning after the incident, Dick Rowland was located on Greenwood Avenue and detained by Detective Henry Carmichael and Henry C. Pack, a black patrolman, one of only a handful on the city’s approximately seventy-eight man police force. After booking, Rowland was taken to the jail on the top floor of the Tulsa County Courthouse for questioning.  Word quickly spread in Tulsa’s legal circles. Many attorneys were familiar with Rowland, being patrons of the shine shop where he was employed. Several of them were heard defending him in personal conversations with one another. One of the men said, “Why I know that boy, and have known him a good while. That’s not in him.”

The black community, equally incensed, prepared to defend him. Outside the courthouse, 75 armed black men mustered, offering their services to protect Rowland The Sheriff refused the offer. A white man then tried to disarm one of the black men. While they were wrestling over the gun, it discharged. That was the spark that turned the incident into a massive racial conflict. Fighting broke out and continued through the night. Homes were looted and burned.

Numerous accounts described airplanes carrying white assailants firing rifles and dropping firebombs on buildings, homes, and fleeing families. The planes, six biplane two-seater trainers left over from World War I, were dispatched from the nearby Curtis Field (now defunct) outside of Tulsa. White law enforcement officials later claimed the sole purpose of the planes was to provide reconnaissance and protect whites against what they described as a “Negro uprising.”However, eyewitness accounts and testimony from the survivors confirmed that on the morning of June 1, the planes dropped incendiary bombs and fired rifles at black Tulsans on the ground. Even one white newspaper in Tulsa reported that alledgedly, airplanes circled over Greenwood during the riot. That account, however, had the planes working in conjunction with the police department to survey the riot. Several groups of blacks attempted to organize a defense, but were ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of whites and weapons. Many blacks, conceding defeat, surrendered. Still others returned fire, ultimately losing their lives. As the fires spread northward through Greenwood, countless black families continued to flee. Many died when trapped by the flames.

Not all white Tulsans shared the views of the rioters. It is claimed that a few whites and Hispanics in neighborhoods adjacent to Greenwood took up arms in support of their black neighbors, but they too were grossly outnumbered.  As unrest spread to other parts of the city, many middle class white families that employed blacks in their homes as cooks and servants were accosted by angry white rioters demanding that they turn over their employees to be taken to detention centers around the city. Many white families complied, but those who refused were subjected to attacks and vandalism.

Oklahoma National Guard troops finally arrived from Oklahoma City by train shortly after 9 a.m. By this time, most of the surviving black citizens had either fled the city or were in custody at the various detention centers. Although they had arrived too late to stop what had happened during the previous 10 hours, by noon, and after declaring martial law, the troops had managed to put an end to most of the remaining violence.