Leaders Step Up To the Plate in Baltimore

Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby

Perhaps nothing illustrated the welcome of a quieter Baltimore today more than the strange sight of the Orioles playing a daytime game against the Chicago White Sox in a stadium with no fans in the stands.

As a New York Yankees fan, I've watched dozens of games in Camden Yards on television over the years but it was truly strange to hear the crack of a bat as the O's hit a three-run homer and not hear the crowd erupt in cheers.

Despite the gates of Camden Yards being closed to fans for another day because of safety concerns, a number of Oriole's fans did show up to line the gates which offer a view of home plate; though said gate is 600 feet from home plate.

More than a few of the orange-clad faithful were heard to complain on NPR radio that the park should have been open on such a beautiful spring day, but given the unfortunate situation on Monday night, maybe it was for the best - and the O's did win 8-2.

Earlier this evening I watched Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby being interviewed on CNN and came away impressed.

While I've been to the city a number of times over the years, I don't really know it's internal politics very well, but I can say that out of all the city leaders I've seen speak in the past few days (including the mayor and police commissioner) Mosby seems to have the most comprehensive understanding of what is actually happening in Baltimore.  

Mosby represents the city's 7th District in West Baltimore and has quickly emerged in the national media spotlight after he totally schooled Fox News television reporter Leland Vittert on the deeper socioeconomic causes of the unrest that shook the city on Monday night.

It's been so impressive to see how quickly members of Baltimore's hardest hit districts have come out in large numbers to show the nation and the world that the vast majority of the city's residents oppose the destruction of property, incidents of looting and isolated displays of violence against police that took place Monday night.

A Unity Line of citizens in West Baltimore [Photo Getty Images]

Everyday average citizens from all walks of life came out in the street yesterday to pick up debris, sweep up streets, throw away trash and perhaps most impressively; stand shoulder to shoulder in what have been called "Unity Lines" - literally forming lines of citizens creating human barriers between groups of restless protesters and the police.

I saw one woman who works as a librarian in a local elementary school standing next to her teenage daughter. The mother said she was there to lead by example by showing her students and faculty members watching on TV at home that their librarian was out there in the streets trying to bring calm to the city; and also to teach her daughter a lesson about civic responsibility and the importance of social activism.

Even though the Unity Lines were there to keep the rowdier groups of younger protesters from attacking the police or escalating violent confrontation, the librarian's daughter said she wasn't there to protect the police; she was there to protect her community.

It was something that really moved me.

"Baltimore Mom" Toya Graham stops her son's foolishness

Like the now infamous "Baltimore Mom" Toya Graham seen in the video that's gone globally viral of her chasing down her son to keep him out of the unrest taking place near a mall on Tuesday April 28th.

As my dearly departed "Gram" would have said; she "'bout snatched him bald".

In doing so this recently laid-off care giver perhaps single-handed, altered the false national media narrative of African-American parents in Baltimore (and elsewhere) as absent, unsupervising and non-caring. 

Perhaps the human condition in this nation would be a better place if more parents (of all races mind you) went "Baltimore Mom" on their wayward kids; I'm not the only one who's been out in public and seen some unsupervised kids acting the fool who could have used a "Baltimore Mom".

Maybe she should have a show?

Speaking of shows, earlier this morning Washington Post Op-Ed writer Jonathan Capeheart was a guest on a segment of The Brian Lehrer Show to discuss his observations of the unrest that's gripped Baltimore.

Among other things, Capeheart talked about something I tried to express in my previous blog entry; that the media was devoting the bulk of it's coverage to the tiny fraction of the protesters responsible for setting fires and throwing rocks at policemen and were ignoring the vast majority of Baltimore citizens who were engaged in peaceful protests over the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.

Even as six BPD officers sit uncharged on paid leave, innocent until proven guilty I guess; unlike the violent way they treated Freddie Gray the weekend before last when they began chasing him for reasons that still haven't actually been made clear.

During Capeheart's radio appearance, a couple callers made some truly eloquent observations about the situation and the segment is really worth a listen if you have a few minutes; just click the link to hear it.   

I'm gonna keep this short by my blog standards (I really need an editor...) by just reiterating how impressed I am with average citizens stepping up to take control of the city and responsibility for their community.

By doing so they're proving a lot of the mainstream media coverage on Monday wrong by showing that the vast majority of folks in Baltimore do NOT condone the destruction of property and that most people continue to be engaged in peaceful demands for accountability and justice for the death of Freddie Gray.

And as Councilman Nick Mosby has said, this unrest was about more than Freddie Gray.

As he pointed out, the unemployment rate in Western Baltimore is a staggering 30%. 30%.

The Baltimore Police Department also has a lengthy and controversial history of violent incidents of police brutality against communities of color; incidents which have cost the city well over $5.7 million in settlements since 2011.

Think Monday's unrest was simply about Freddie Gray?

Read Mark Puente's September 28, 2014 Baltimore Sun investigation entitled "Undue Force" that chronicles just some of the most disturbing examples of police brutality and violence against citizens of Baltimore.

Maybe President Obama should have read Puente's article before he stood at a podium at a news conference and dismissed the hundreds of outraged youth in Baltimore as "thugs."

No one is excusing arson, looting or violence against police or anyone else, but it didn't just flare up in a vacuum out of thin air - and some of the "thugs" in Baltimore are wearing police uniforms.

A Riot By Any Other Name?

The Baltimore riot of 1861

The episodes of violence and property destruction that gripped the city of Baltimore today were unfortunate for the idea of civil disobedience, but it's happened before.

Many times.

The Baltimore Riots of 1861, which broke out on April 19, 1861 when Union troops being transferred to Washington, D.C. were attacked by mobs of Confederate sympathizers and pro-slavery activists who lived in the city at the outbreak of the Civil War, left some sixteen people dead and dozens more injured.

Not only would those riots lead to some of the first deaths of Federal troops in the Civil War (four soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts Militia were killed by pro-Confederate mobs on April 19th) the ensuing disorder on the part of Baltimore officials would lead President Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to arrest and hold Confederate sympathizers and secessionists and restore order to the city.

After the violent attacks on the Federal troops (who were simply making their way to another rail station) mobs attacked and destroyed the offices of a German language newspaper, Baltimore Wecker,  as William Schnauffer the publisher was a staunch supporter of the Union; he and the editor Wilhelm Rapp were forced to flee the city for their own safety.

So in the midst of what's going on now in Baltimore, some historical perspective helps to put things in context.

Since 1807 there have been at least nine different riots in the city of Baltimore, including the aforementioned riots in April, 1861, riots associated with the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and rioting that took place in April of 1968 in the wake of nationwide outrage over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th.

And here again on April 27, 2015, a day that was supposed to be a day of mourning for the family and friends of Freddie Gray instead sparked more violent reactions just hours after hundreds attended a packed funeral service.

Too many of the television reports I saw on what were constantly labeled "the riots" today focused exclusively on the worst parts of the civil disorder that affected parts of the city; officers hurling tear gas canisters, looters pouring out of a CVS store that was later engulfed in flames and shots of police arresting rioters.
 
It's hard to tell from the images of disorder and looting constantly being recycled by mainstream media outlets, but there were also hundreds of people participating in peaceful protests across the city of Baltimore today.
 
Their demands for answers in the death of Gray while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department were largely drowned out, and their non-violent actions overshadowed by the actions of roving smaller groups of outraged (mostly young) people damaging police vehicles, causing damage to local businesses (and in some cases looting) and in several areas of the city, hurling bottles rocks and other items at police in riot gear.

But as a Twitter user named Afro State of Mind observed a little while ago, despite all these reports of rioting and property destruction, no one's spine was severed.

During the course of the day I kept hearing the same report about a Baltimore Police officer who was injured in the riots and was "unresponsive."

Yet the Baltimore Police Department's own Twitter account released this statement via Twitter within the last 90 minutes: @BaltimorePolice "We have received several media inquires asking if we have an officer who was injured and in grave condition. THIS IS NOT TRUE."

Riots tend to fuel reactionary and inflammatory rhetoric on both sides of the issue, as different groups seek to use the imagery to fit a narrative.

April 27th protests over Freddie Gray's death in Oakland, CA

Given the media's tendency to distort what's actually happening on the ground in the interest of ratings, it's quite understandable that some might see what's happening in Baltimore as anarchy, but it's actually not.

What's happening in Baltimore is part of a growing national opposition to, and outrage over the unchecked excessive police use of deadly force in this nation that too often claims the lives of poor African-American and Hispanic men and boys.

It's easy to look at a burning store, or a police car on fire and label what's happening in Baltimore as simply "rioting".

But look at the photo above, that's a photo that was posted on Twitter earlier this evening of street protests taking place in Oakland, California right now; it's early evening Eastern Time as I write this.

What you see in that photo are diverse groups of people taking part in the same organized protests going on in Baltimore. These are Americans united in opposition of unchecked police use of deadly force.

These are Americans outraged at the idea of a man's neck being severed in police custody who are demanding an end to the abuse of police power seen most recently in South Carolina and in Tulsa. 

I'm not condoning the destruction of property in Baltimore or anywhere else for that matter.

Personally, on this day when the nation's first African-American Attorney General was sworn into office, I think there were far more effective peaceful ways of civil dissent that could have been used to bring media attention to the Freddie Gray case and bring pressure to bear on the city of Baltimore to hold the officers involved in this young man's death accountable.

People from different age groups, religions, economic backgrounds, races and nationalities are tired of it.

They're tired of a nation whose political leaders used inflated rhetoric to point the finger at human rights abuses in China, Syria, Iran or Russia; while in this nation the Department of Justice doesn't even keep accurate data on the death of Americans killed by police - making it even harder to know exactly how many innocent people are killed by members of law enforcement.

Politicians in Washington wag their fingers at accounts of ISIS members killing innocent civilians in countries thousands of miles away from the United States, while less than an hour's drive from the nation's capital, members of the Baltimore Police Department are seen on tape dragging Freddie Gray into a police van as he screams in agony; only to be found with a severed neck about an hour later.

So no one wants to see people venting their outrage on a CVS store, but remember there are over 7,600 CVS stores in the United States; a CVS can be rebuilt and the shelves restocked.

Freddie Gray's life was taken, that's irreplaceable.

And for many people in Baltimore and around the nation, that's unacceptable.

So perhaps a "riot" is simply a matter of perspective. Maybe those images of Baltimore being shown on television are not simply a bunch of crazed lunatics running around burning stores and police cars.

Maybe what you see are Americans who believe in the right to due process who are determined not to see Freddie Gray's life reduced to a concocted police story, a botched investigation and a bogus trial.

Maybe what you see in Baltimore and other cities are Americans determined to see that Freddie Gray's voice is heard in a court of law, even though he can't be there to testify.

After all, if the Boston Tea Party, or Abraham Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War, or Daniel Ellsberg giving The Washington Post and The New York Times copies of a classified Defense Department study of the Vietnam War, or some black students sitting at a lunch counter  teaches us anything, it's that sometimes laws must be broken.

Not to "riot" or cause chaos; but to challenge authority in order to enforce the larger concept of the rule of law.

That's what was at the heart of many of the previous "riots" that have taken place in Baltimore since 1807 - that's what's at the heart of what is happening right now.

  

Native American Actors Exit Set of Adam Sandler's 'The Ridiculous Six' in Protest

Adam Sandler on the set of Netflix's 'The Ridiculous Six'

Netflix has enjoyed huge success as a popular platform for distributing and providing content, and more recently they have altered the broadcast and cable media landscape as a content producer with award-winning original series like 'House of Cards' and 'Orange Is the New Black'.

In doing so they've not only opened the doors for other companies like Amazon to create original content, Netflix has devoted enormous resources to begin developing and producing their own original films as well.

While they have forced more traditional film and television companies and studios to rethink the way they allow consumers to access their content, a recent on-set incident has shown that the challenges of producing your own content are very different from simply paying licensing fees to bring other producer's content to consumers. 

As reported in an article by Vincent Schilling posted on the Website of the Indian Country Today Media Network Website last Thursday, a group of Native American actors as well as an on-set adviser hired to oversee cultural depictions, walked off the set of Adam Sandler's Netflix production, 'The Ridiculous Six' in protest of what they claim are racist and demeaning portrayals of Native Americans and traditional Apache tribal culture in the script of the film currently shooting in Las Vegas, New Mexico.    

White actor Henry Brandon as Scar in 'The Searchers' 1953

The prevalence of negative, limiting or one-dimensional depictions of Native American people in American films has been something of an ugly sore spot on our nation's cultural landscape for years.

With rare exception, up until the 1970's major Native American film characters were played by white actors, such as Henry Brandon (pictured left) who played the infamous blue-eyed murderous kidnapper of white women, Scar in the classic 1953 John Ford film 'The Searchers'.

Despite it's racist depictions of Native Americans, Ford's cinematic masterpiece is still widely considered one of the finest American films of the 20th century, one that offers a complex analysis of the main character, an angry Civil War veteran consumed by racism and hatred played by John Wayne who embarks upon an epic journey to find his white niece; who was kidnapped during a violent attack by Indians who committed unspeakable atrocities upon members of his family before murdering them.

Hollywood bears a lot of responsibility for simplistic portrayals of Native Americans as "blood-thirsty savages", drunken buffoons, docile superstitious imbeciles, or war-like barbarians.

Will Sampson as Chief in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

But that began to change in the 1970's with the appearance of more complex and nuanced Native American characters colored with humanity in films like 'Little Big Man',  'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (pictured left) and 'The Outlaw Josey Wales'.

More recently films like 'Dances With Wolves' and 'The Last of the Mohicans' offered new insight into the complexity of Native American culture in successful and critically-acclaimed films that managed to blend history, action/adventure and romance with compelling screenplays that forced film audiences to look at American history from a new perspective.

That's part of what makes the incident with Adam Sandler's film so puzzling.

Given all the publicity surrounding the ongoing controversy over the mascot name and logo of the Washington Redskins, you'd think the producers of a big-budget western comedy that contains Native American characters would be mindful of that (as well as Hollywood's history) in terms of how those characters are portrayed.

Even if 'The Ridiculous Six' (a spoof of 'The Magnificent Seven') is an Adam Sandler comedy (he co-wrote the script), is it really necessary to have a female Native American character named 'Beaver Breath'? Or have an Apache woman character smoking a peace pipe while squatting to pee?  

Can't Native American characters in comedy films be presented in respectful ways that don't sink to the lowest common denominator?

In light of a more organized and coordinated Native American media response to the Washington Redskins' controversy, the actors and cultural adviser who walked off the set last Wednesday have generated a good deal of online media attention since the story broke last Thursday.

'The Ridiculous Six' is a huge financial investment and a big risk for both Netflix and Adam Sandler.

With a cast that also includes Nick Nolte, Steve Buscemi, Dan Akroyd, Jon Lovits and former "rapper" Vanilla Ice, the walk-out by Native American actors during production is not just going to blow away.

Tribal leaders have already spoken out publicly about the film and the story is getting bigger coverage on the Web.

If the film's producers were smart, they'd immediately address the concerns expressed by Native American actors involved with the film, make some changes to the script, release a public statement with an apology, invite the actors who walked off the set back to the production and get on with filming before the controversy starts to overshadow the film itself.

Otherwise they could be facing the same kind of disastrous media flap that happened to Sony's comedy about the assassination of the North Korean leader 'The Interview' last December.

The Native American perspective on 'The Ridiculous Six' is perhaps best summed up by actor David Hill, a 74 year-old Choctaw and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who was one of those who walked off the set last week.

He was quoted in Vincent Schilling's ICTMN.com article as saying of the producers; "They were being disrespectful. They were bringing up those same old arguments Dan Snyder uses in defending the (Washington) Redskins. But let me tell you, our dignity is not for sale....I hope they will listen to us. We understand this is a comedy, we understand this is humor, but we won't tolerate disrespect."
   

Ben Affleck's Request to Hide Slave-Owner Ancestor Sparks PBS Investigation

Actor/director/producer Ben Affleck

No matter who we are in America, each of us is interwoven into the complex tapestry of race that defines this nation; and family secrets are something each of us have whether we know it or not.

Would you discuss yours on national TV?

The news that Ben Affleck asked the producers of 'Finding Your Roots', the acclaimed PBS genealogy series hosted by esteemed Harvard history Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., to conceal the fact that he has an ancestor who owned slaves is an indicator of not just the deep complexity of race in America, but also why it's such a difficult topic to talk about in one of the most racially diverse nations in the world.

An article on the 'The Hollywood Reporter' Website posted earlier this evening reports that portions of the huge trove of hacked Sony e-mails that were released by Wiki Leaks last week revealed publicly that Affleck sought to repress the information about his family history after research conducted for his appearance on an episode of 'Finding Your Roots' revealed that an as-yet unnamed ancestor of his owned slaves.

The episode in which Affleck appeared aired back on October 14, 2014 (that made no mention of the ancestor in question) and the release of the Sony e-mail revealing that Affleck sought to censor the information about his ancestor has now triggered an internal investigation into the matter by PBS.

Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Anyone who's watched even a single episode of 'Finding Your Roots' on PBS knows that host Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. treats the knowledge and research that is revealed with a deep respect, quiet candor and lack of judgment that helps both the interview subject (usually a famous celebrity) and the viewing audience gain a deeper insight into not only history, but ourselves as a nation - and indeed, the complexity of the human condition. 

This nation was founded on an agrarian society that was based on the forced enslavement of human beings as a low-cost labor source, so race and the myriad issues related to racial identity lie at the very core of who we are as a people.

With the help of advances in science and technology that accelerates data search, Dr. Gates' conversations on the PBS show often reveal fascinating things about race and genetics; things that help us to better understand our complex racial identity in ways we can all understand.

For example there are black people who discover they have white or Asian ancestors. There are white people who discover they have African-American or middle eastern ancestors - and yes, there are white people who discover that their lineage includes ancestors who were part of the system that enslaved Africans for generations.

I watched a really intriguing episode of 'Finding Your Roots' with actor Kevin Bacon and his wife actress Kyra Sedgewick where it was revealed that Kevin Bacon has English royalty in his blood, but perhaps more interesting, Krya Sedgewick had ancestors who owned slaves in her family.  

It's fair to say she seemed surprised by this revelation. She quietly listened as Professor Gates explained the specifics and though she remained composed, I suspect that inside her mind she was wondering if the knowledge would change how people perceive her.

Personally, I thought it showed courage to share something like that on television, knowing it was an important, albeit uncomfortable, part of our collective history.

Personally I'm a huge fan of Sedgewick's excellent work on 'The Closer' (a well-written show with a diverse cast and a powerful female lead) and there's no way I would consider judging her negatively for the actions of her distant relative.

I can't help but think that Ben Affleck might have done better to take a page from Sedgewick's book.

Affleck achieved notoriety pretty early on in his career with a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the script for the 1997 film 'Good Will Hunting' which he co-wrote with actor/writer Matt Damon, but the obsessive media attention on his short-lived marriage to singer /actress Jennifer Lopez perhaps unfairly overshadowed his genuine on-screen presence and raw talent as an actor.

Personally, I thought he elevated his acting to whole new level with his role as a successful salesman who finds himself downsized in the excellent 2010 independent film 'The Company Men' alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper and Kevin Costner.

More recently, he won Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for the 2012 film, 'Argo'. 

So I don't think it's surprising or shocking that Affleck would feel reluctant to publicly talk about an ancestor who owned slaves, particularly given how prevalent national media coverage of the killing of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and other African-Americans at the hands of white police officers  was back in the fall when his appearance on 'Finding Your Roots' aired on PBS.

Affleck, whose real name is Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt, was born in the relatively liberal academic enclave of Berkeley, California to a social worker father and a mother who was a school teacher.

He was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is not exactly an intellectual backwater, so it's probably fair to say that his upbringing was much more progressive than it was conservative; even if Berkeley and Cambridge aren't exactly known as hubs of racial diversity.

Affleck got into a pretty heated exchange with Bill Maher during an October 3, 2014 appearance on the HBO show 'Real Time with Bill Maher' when he accused Maher and guest/author Sam Harris of what he felt were racist observations about Muslims and Islam.

Considering that Affleck's episode of 'Finding Your Roots' where knowledge of his slave-owning ancestor was not revealed, aired just eleven days after the highly publicized confrontation with Maher, looking back I wonder if Affleck's highly visible anger about the anti-Islamic comments were in some way related to his having learned about his slave-owning ancestor.

Had he heard about the results of Professor Gates' research before her went on Bill Maher?

Perhaps on some level he was fighting to distance himself from what he'd discovered about his own past; perhaps his indignation reveals a man who was struggling to come to grips with learning about having a family member who owned slaves; and what people might think of him because of that.

I don't know, that's only speculation on my part.

But I do know that I don't judge Ben Affleck negatively because of something a distant ancestor of his did.

After all there were thousands and thousands of people who owned slaves over the course of American history. From interviews I've seen or read with American descendants of slave owners, or slave traders, some white families see it as an aspect of family history that's never talked about, or only discussed in whispers.

For some white people, even talking about slave-owning ancestors has actually divided families between members who see it as a taboo family secret and those who want to discuss it openly.

Consequently I know there are many African-Americans, particularly older generations, who refuse to discuss it or view it as something too traumatic, painful or embarrassing to discuss; not every black American family rushed out to research their family tree after Alex Haley's novel 'Roots' was published and the subsequent ground-breaking television series aired on ABC. 

After all, slavery represents the most painful and bloody chapter in American history, a scourge of human misery and suffering that stands in total contrast to the lofty ideals of the Constitution.

But it's not a simple history, in fact it's rather tricky.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, yet he fathered children with an African-American woman named Sally Hennings. The "father" of our country George Washington owned slaves too.

There are any number of well-known celebrities, politicians and leaders who come from families who owned slaves.

Like Anderson Cooper, his great-great grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt, the shipping and railroad magnate, owned slave plantations; in fact he owned one in Georgetown, South Carolina where First Lady Michelle Obama's ancestor Jim Robinson worked as a slave in 1850.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's descendants, like many wealthy British families, profited handsomely from slavery too through the 202 slaves they owned who worked the family's Grange Sugar Estate in Jamaica.

The British historian Dr. Nick Draper of University College in London has estimated that up to one-fifth of all wealthy English families in the Victorian Era inherited part or all of their wealth from the slave trade; the Bank of England was a major financier of the West African slave trade as are other companies and financial institutions that exist today.

It wasn't just wealthy British who made fortunes from slavery either; French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Belgian and Portuguese made fortunes as well.

Closer to home, one of America's most prestigious universities was founded (in part) with money made from trading or owning slaves.

John Brown I, born in 1736 was a leading statesman, merchant and major east coast slave trader who was not only instrumental in founding Brown University in Providence, he used his position in politics to advocate for the institution of slavery; even though he was leading figure in the American Revolution.

George W. Bush, Paula Deen and Pastor Rick Warren are just some of the famous Americans with relatives who owned slaves; that's not a judgment so much as a part of American history.

So Ben Affleck isn't alone by any means, but I can sympathize with why he tried to conceal the knowledge.

With the story breaking publicly, Affleck has issued public statements and message on his Facebook page apologizing for requesting that PBS producers not reveal the information about his ancestor.

That's not something that could have been easy for him to process.

Our nation is over 239 years old and the foundation of slavery predates the actual forming of the United States as a country by generations. We fought a Civil War over it that almost destroyed our nation.

To this date, Americans, both black and white still have a hard time talking about slavery as an institution.

It's something that's a part of us, something that defines us, yet we are repulsed by the idea of it even as we struggle to understand it and recognize the need to come to grips with it.

So Ben Affleck isn't alone. Aside from his celebrity, he's actually just like all of us; an American still trying to understand an institution that predates the Constitution.

Just another American trying to figure out how to talk about it.
  

30 Minutes in Baltimore - The Death of Freddie Gray

Freddie Gray, 25, died Sunday

Brooklyn. Queens. Philadelphia. Cleveland. Ferguson. Chicago. Miami. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Charleston. Tulsa.

The list of American cities where unarmed African-American boys and men have lost their lives during encounters with members of law enforcement doesn't seem to keep pace with prosecutions of those police officers responsible for unjustified use of deadly force.

Will that change with the city of Baltimore now that the disturbing case of Freddie Gray has been thrust into the media spotlight?

From the terse, guarded statements released by Baltimore PD, it's going to take time to unravel the truth.

The facts are still murky, but as you've probably heard the end result is all too clear; and shocking by any standards of a modern civilized society.

At 8:54am on Sunday April 12th Gray was arrested by members of the Baltimore PD mounted on bicycles before being transferred to a police wagon to be transported to the police station three blocks away.

At 9:24am police called paramedics to the police station of the western district where Gray was found with three broken vertebrae in his neck; a neck injury so severe it almost severed his spinal cord.

He lapsed into a coma and eventually died in the hospital this past Sunday April 19th.

So what happened during the 30 minutes when Gray was locked in the back of that police wagon?

According to an article by Justin Fenton and Jessica Anderson posted on the Website of the Baltimore Sun earlier this evening, the Baltimore police are still being vague about why they arrested Gray in the first place.

In documents filed with the district court, officer Garret Miller states that officers chased Gray after he, "fled unprovoked upon noticing police presence."

Not to be flippant, but given the recent high-profile deaths of any number of young black men at the hands of police, and given Baltimore PD's tense relationship with the largely African-American community it serves, is it really surprising that Freddie Gray ran?

Police statements offer the usual assortment of "facts" typically offered up to justify excessive use of force or a violation of a defendant's rights. We've yet to hear from the four officers involved in the incident; perhaps they "felt threatened".

In a press conference, deputy police commissioner Jerry Rodriguez stated that Gray was in a high-crime area where drug trafficking was known to occur; so not only are some Baltimore residents trapped in a cycle of poverty, their being locked by geographic and economic boundaries in high-crime neighborhoods is in itself, justification for police to stop them. 

Was Freddie Gray criminalized simply for walking around in his neighborhood?

Once he was stopped, police claim to have found a switchblade knife clipped to the INSIDE of his pants pocket; so he was arrested.

Is there any proof the knife was his? If it did belong to Gray, by the police's own statement, it wasn't even visible when they saw him.

And even if it was his knife, if you've watched HBO's groundbreaking series "The Wire" anyone walking through Baltimore's west side would probably be carrying something to protect themselves.

Regardless the police court statement goes on to state that, "The defendant was arrested without force or incident...During transport to Western District via wagon transport the defendant suffered a medical emergency and was immediately transported to Shock Trauma via medic."

Remember, he was arrested three blocks from the station; what were the police doing for 30 minutes with Gray already handcuffed and locked in the back of the police wagon?

According to members of his family who saw him in the hospital last week, Gray's voice box was damaged and his brain was swollen.

Gray's lawyer, William Murphy, Jr., speaking on behalf of the family said, “We believe the police are keeping the circumstances of Freddie’s death a secret until they develop a version of events that will absolve them of all responsibility.”

Until the truth comes out those 30 minutes Freddie Gray spent in the back of that police van are essentially "missing" in time.

At least one of the four Baltimore police officers who've been placed on desk duty knows what happened but unfortunately the wheels of justice turn slowly when it's the word of four cops against a dead black defendant in this nation.

But the wheels do turn. For the sake of justice and the rule of law, hopefully technology (video, CCTV, radio transmissions or cell phone video), science, facts and a visible public outcry will allow the dead to speak.

And while the Baltimore PD will try to vilify him and slander his character, hopefully the media will help remind the public that this victim of such horrific and unexplainable violence was a son, the brother of a twin sister and a friend; a 25 year-old guy who loved to joke around and was generous to those he knew.

The fact that Freddie Gray won't have an opportunity to testify about those 30 minutes in the back of that police wagon is not only a sad measure of the state of law enforcement in America, it offers us insight into how black humanity is perceived - and the value of black life in the 21st century here in the greatest nation in the world.

I think a quote from his distraught sister Carolina sums it up best, “If someone has surrendered and you’ve put the handcuffs on him, what is the point of you beating them?"

That's a question we can ask, but the law enforcement community and the court system in this country is going to have to provide the answer.

And it's going to take a lot longer than 30 minutes.

Inside Professor Brownback's Laboratory & The Vilification of the Working Poor In America

Ready? Cut! Kansas Governor Sam Brownback

There are arguably some pretty crazy Republican governors in these United States, but you really have to admire Governor Sam Brownback's stubborn determination to turn the state of Kansas into an idealistic conservative Utopia; at any cost.

Earlier today he signed into law some of the most restrictive laws in the nation that severely limit how Kansas welfare recipients can spend their money.

That's right, the same governor who's ranted about "big government" and the intrusion of government authority has used the legislative power of the state government to mandate draconian restrictions on how Kansas families on welfare can spend their money.

According to an article on Aljazeera.com, the list of no-no's includes things like concerts, tattoo artists, psychics (yes psychics), cruise ships or movies.
 
But interestingly, as NPR reported today, the new Republican restrictions do NOT apply to firearms.

So Kansas welfare recipients can't use their money to take their kid to see a movie, but they can buy ammo; how Republican is THAT?

But wait, there's more. Remarkably, the restrictions also limit each ATM transaction of the debit card Kansas welfare recipients are issued to a mere $25. As the Aljazeera.com article notes, that essentially imposes a tax on welfare recipients given that most ATM's charge withdrawal fees, don't issue bills in $5 denominations and the majority of poor or lower middle-class Kansas welfare recipients often don't have access to normal banking services.

As an article posted on ThinkProgress.org reported, "Meanwhile, during debate over the bill state Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau (D) pointed out that many recipients need to withdraw hundreds of dollars some days in order to be able to pay rent." 

No one is going to argue that transitioning Americans off welfare in ways that will allow them to be self-sufficient is a bad thing, but the extreme nature of the Kansas welfare restrictions come off as  vindictive, petty and chiefly motivated by a desire to appease the fringe element that now holds the strings of the Republican party; thanks to ALEC, similar restrictions have been passed in 20 other states.

Kansas Action for Children CEO Shannon Cotsoradis

The Associated Press quoted Shannon Cotsoradis, president and CEO of the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children as saying of the new Kansas laws severely restricting how welfare recipients spend their money: "

It really seems to make a statement about how we feel about the poor."

These kinds of restrictions on how welfare recipients spend their money are disturbing on multiple levels.


They reinforce distorted perceptions of the working poor (most American adults on welfare work) as 2nd class citizens who need to be told how to spend their money.

But perhaps more disturbing is that these restrictions are essentially a retreaded version of the vilification of the poor used by the Reagan administration when he and his economic advisers ranted against "Welfare Queens" back in the 1980's, regurgitating simplistic stereotypes of poor African-American, Hispanic and whites and mocking populations of poorly-educated urban and rural residents geographically locked into impoverished neighborhoods through economic and racial discrimination and stuck in cycles of poverty.

When it comes down to it, is there a difference between an impoverished family that lives in North Philadelphia, rural Kentucky or on a reservation? These restrictions are economically discriminatory as much as they are racial or political; or based on other ethnic attributes.

Brownback has never hidden how he feels about the wealthiest and the poorest in the state of Kansas.

He made national headlines over the past couple years after his bold initiative to take advantage of his gubernatorial powers and an eager GOP-majority state legislature to use the state of Kansas as a working "laboratory" for executing fringe conservative ideas.

Aided by a former key Reagan administration economic adviser and representatives from groups including Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and yes, the Koch brothers, Brownback enacted a series of sweeping tax cuts affecting top earners and businesses.

How sweeping? Like a mad swordsman he slashed regulations and all but eliminated taxes on businesses in the state of Kansas while gifting wealthy Kansas citizens with unprecedented cuts in income taxes.

Conservatives drooled and fawned.

Here at last was a chance to validate the long-disproved "Trickle Down" economic theory long espoused by wishful Republicans as if it were some kind of magical elixir that could jump start the American economy and set the nation on a path to prosperity instead of the discredited political-economic philosophy credible economists have shown it to be. 

We've all heard the party line: slash taxes for the wealthy and business and they will pump that money back into the economy creating jobs and prosperity for all. But Brownback's "experiment" was a colossal failure that drained state revenue, stalled economic growth in Kansas to anemic levels, killed job growth and sent the state economy straight into the red.

Read op-ed writer Yael Abouhalkah's piece published in The Kansas City Star back on February 2nd of this year if you want to get a true picture of how Brownback's tax cuts have destroyed the Kansas economy.

Abouhalkkah quotes figures right from the Kansas Department of Revenue showing that in the first two years of Brownback's tax cuts starting in 2013, revenues from state income tax dropped by a staggering $713 million.

The remarkable thing is even after the state began slashing spending on essentials like public education, roads and public pensions in order to try and make up the difference - the people of Kansas re-elected Brownback to another term during the fall 2014 elections. 

If I were a political cartoonist, I'd sketch Brownback as a modern day Don Quixote sitting astride an elephant.

His checklist of destructive conservative policy initiatives is so bizarre and brazen, I'd bet a five-spot that he's eager to jump into that growing pool of "potential GOP presidential candidates" which seems to get stranger by the minute.

Take for example, the Republican party's "answer" to Hillary Clinton, "potential" presidential candidate Carly Fiorina - who's been dipping her toes into the presidential pool as well.

GOP presidential hopeful (?) Carly Fiorina

And yes, that's the same Carly Fiorina (pictured left) who spent over $22 million in a failed bid to unseat Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer back in 2010.

Earlier this evening Sarah Farris posted an interesting piece on TheHill.com.

According to the article, Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO, was quoted as saying that "Conservatives are 'winning' on abortion" at an event hosted by the conservative pro-life group known as the Susan B. Anthony List.

By any measure, that's a pretty astounding statement.

If stripping access to healthcare and cutting off access to breast cancer and other types of screening for millions of low-income women and making it harder for abortion clinics to operate through arcane laws enacted by Republican state legislators is what Fiorina meant by Republicans "winning" on abortion, then yeah, I guess she's "right."

But it's says a lot about today's GOP that Fiorina, who once led an enormous high tech company with thousands of employees, is now proudly trumpeting the trampling of women's rights as a credential for being president of a nation of over 300 million - more than half of whom are women.  

Maybe it's not surprising though. Fiorina earned a reputation at HP for being a "big picture" ideas-oriented executive who was adverse to compromise and reluctant to delegate authority; the latter two arguably being fairly important qualities of anyone who expects to be the chief executive in Washington, DC.   

For a couple of Republicans with little mainstream appeal who have their respective eyes on the GOP presidential nomination, Fiorina and Brownback are making an awful lot of conservative noise.

But to quote Shakespeare, "Sound and fury, signifying nothing."

One Broken Tail Light, One Life Ended; Too Many Questions

US Navy veteran Walter L. Scott

Now it's obviously quite disturbing to watch the cell phone video of 33 year-old North Charleston, South Carolina Patrolman 1st Class Michael Slager shooting an unarmed 50 year-old African-American man named Walter Lamar Scott in the back multiple times. 

Regardless I think it's important to watch it for what it reveals about ingrained bias within American law enforcement.

But perhaps even more disturbing than watching a police officer casually fire shots at a man who is running away from him, is how Slager reacts once Scott is on the ground.

Last Saturday morning April 4th (the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination) while some of us were contemplating our Easter Sunday plans, Slager spotted a broken brake light on the back of Walter Scott's black Mercedes and pulled him over on a Charleston street not far from a muffler shop.

According to excerpts of an interview in Charleston's The Post and Courier  with his older brother Anthony, Walter Scott was not some kind of crazed violent criminal.

He was a gainfully employed African-American father and US Navy veteran who was simply scared of being arrested because he had missed several appearances in court for failure to pay back child support and he didn't want to be jailed and jeopardize his job.

So he made the worst mistake of his life, he ran; and Patrolman Slager took off in pursuit. At some point in a grassy field the two tussled briefly and officer Slager shot Scott with a taser gun; but Scott managed to break free and took off running again.

Officer Michael Slager

Slager (pictured left) took out his handgun and fired eight shots at Scott, four of which struck him in the back according to the Scott family's lawyer, killing him.

In the wake of the fatal shooting, Slager released a statement through his lawyer David Aylor claiming that he fired because he was in fear for his life after Scott wrestled his taser gun from him.


He said he "felt threatened". Sound familiar?

Based on a number of recent high profile cases of police officers facing no charges after shooting (or choking) and killing unarmed men of color (and boys too, lest we forget 12 year-old Tamir Rice) in cities around the nation, Slager's statement probably would have been taken as gospel and the North Charleston police likely would have pointed to a 28 year-old assault and battery charge against Scott reaching back to 1987 as evidence of his being "dangerous."

But recently released cell phone video of the incident taken by a young bystander standing outside the fence of the field behind the muffler ship where the incident took place totally contradicts officer Slager's statement and his account of the incident.

There's nothing ambiguous about what happens in the video. Watch the unedited version for yourself.

Slager not only shoots Scott, he gets on his police radio, reports the shooting then says the victim (Scott) took his taser.

With sirens approaching, Scott then hurries back over to the area where they'd just tussled, picks up the taser gun, brings it back over to where Scott is laying on the ground dying; and drops it near him.

Perhaps most chilling, for at least two and a half minutes after shooting Scott, Slager just stands there. He makes no effort at all to tend to Scott or administer CPR.

Remarkably you can see Slager yelling at Scott (who's motionless on the ground) not to move after he's shot him five times; he cuffs the dying man, like the poor guy wasn't just trying to run away from him a few minutes earlier.

Another officer arrives and starts to inspect Scott's body for gunshot wounds, but no CPR is administered. The video reveals not only a totally unjustified shooting, it shows a police officer casually trying to stage the scene so he can concoct a story to save his own ass.

Attorney David Aylor quickly announced that he would no longer be representing Slager.

The bystander who took the cell phone video took it to the Scott family, who passed it along to state investigators; if you watch clips of the North Charleston police Chief Eddie Driggers and Mayor Keith Summey discussing the incident, you can see the disgust on their faces and hear the emotion in their voices.

Chief Driggers was hired to help address charges of rampant biased policing and excessive police violence against poor minority communities in Charleston; to say that Walter Scott's death is a setback to his efforts to restore trust between police and the communities they serve would probably be putting it lightly.

The release of the video and subsequent murder charges filed against officer Slager will propel this tragic case of excessive police force into the national spotlight pretty quickly and the trial will obviously be closely watched.

But Mayor Keith Summey probably summed it up best though in his press conference when he said:
"When you're wrong, you're wrong. If you make a bad decision, don't care if you're behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by that decision."

Wrong is right.