Racist Republicans Mad b/c Rep. Marcia Fudge said "We lost [elections] because our party has, to some extent, lost white Southerners due in part to the race of our President."

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Cleveland.com

"Democrats lost Senate control because we failed to mobilize young voters across racial and regional spectrums," her statement continued. "We failed to persuade Southern voters to hold true to core Democratic values. We lost because the Hispanic community was insufficiently motivated.

"We lost because of ideological differences within the Democratic Party and with our Administration. We lost because our party has, to some extent, lost white Southerners due in part to the race of our President."

Blaming Black people for choosing not to vote for puppeticians who do nothing to address racism/white supremacy is deception in service of the necessary illusion of choice.[MORE]

 

High blood pressure and kidney decline may be caused by Racist Conduct by Whites

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 Time

Feeling judged because of your race could have a negative impact on your physical health, a new study finds.

A team of researchers studied 1,574 residents of Baltimore as part of the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study and found that 20% of the subjects reported feeling that they had been racially discriminated against “a lot.”

Even after the researchers adjusted the results for race, this group had higher systolic blood pressure than those who perceived only a little discrimination.

Over a five-year followup, the group who felt more racial discrimination also tended to have greater decline in kidney function. When the researchers, co-led by Deidra C. Crews, MD, assistant professor of medicine and chair of the diversity council at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, adjusted for age and lifestyle factors, the effect stayed constant for African-American women.

“Psychosocial stressors could potentially have an effect on kidney function decline through a number of hormonal pathways,” Dr. Crews said. The release of stress hormones can lead to an increase in blood pressure, and high blood pressure is one of the leading causes of kidney disease.

This isn’t the first time that perceived racial discrimination has been linked to chronic diseases: a 2011 study found that lifetime discrimination was linked to higher rates of hypertension.

Black Family wins settlement in Hays State Prison wrongful death lawsuit

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CorrectionsOne

The first lawsuit filed against Georgia's prison system for violence at Hays State Prison that led to four prisoner deaths has been settled for several hundred thousand dollars.

RaHonda MacClain, the mother of Damion MacClain, had wanted the state held accountable for ignoring the ruthless gang violence and dangerous conditions where cell door locks were left broken or could be defeated with only a napkin.

It was those conditions that led to her son being beaten and strangled and left in his prison bed to die, her lawsuit filed in September 2013 stated.

If she had lived long enough to testify against the Department of Corrections -- from State Commissioner Brian Owens to the dorm guards at Hays -- MacClain's family said they wouldn't have chosen to settle.

But MacClain was the main witness in the case, said her brother Lysander Turner. After her unexpected death earlier this year, the Southern Center for Human Rights, which handled the case for the family, encouraged him to settle. Turner said he didn't want to give the exact amount of the settlement.

"If it was left up to me I would have took it all the way," he said. "It wasn't really about the money. I just wanted to bring the attention of the public to the Department of Corrections."

The Department of Corrections didn't comment on the settlement Tuesday.

Damion MacClain was the second prisoner killed in a week at Hays State Prison in December 2012. Two more men would die in a seven-week span before the Department of Corrections ousted the warden and funneled millions of dollars to fix broken cell doors and harden cells where prisoners were pulling the metal from window frames and vents to make deadly weapons.

The families of the last two inmates killed -- 19-year-old Pippa Hall-Jackson and Nathaniel Reynolds -- also sued the Department of Corrections in October. The suit alleges that 11 prison officials -- from the state commissioner to low-level guards -- were deliberately indifferent to the growing violence that led to their sons' deaths.

The deaths at Hays State Prison and dozens of others in the Georgia prison system haven't gone unnoticed, said state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, who held a hearing in April at the Capitol to discuss the growing violence.

Fort said the state must do more to ensure the safety of its prisoners. He said he will meet with Owens before he decides whether to introduce legislation next year.[MORE]

Baltimore Decides to Disclose the Results of Police Brutality Lawsuits to the Public

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AtlantaBlackStar

In a progressive move, Baltimore officials have announced the city will make the outcome of all civil lawsuits alleging police brutality available to the public.

A six-month investigation by the Baltimore Sun revealed that the city has paid $5.7 million since 2011 on lawsuits and settlements in 102 civil suits alleging police brutality and misconduct.

The Sun‘s report included accounts of broken bones and beaten faces of suspects during arrests. Victims of brutality and civil rights violations in Baltimore include a 15-year old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year old pregnant accountant who witnessed a beating, a 50-year old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 67-year old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson, the report said.

The newspaper found that sometimes officers did not complete their use-of-force reports, which are required after a violent arrest.

Nearly all of the people in the incidents were cleared of criminal charges, according to The Sun.

City solicitor George Nilson enacted a new policy for police settlements and court judgements that will provide increased training for officers who are often cited in these kinds of lawsuits. He told The Sun that the new policies will give the public more information.

“I want to end the thinking that we’re hiding the ball, because we’re not,” he told The Sun.

The new database will have summarizations of excessive force lawsuits. It will have a record of the outcomes of lawsuits and settlements reached. Cases that have already been settled won’t be posted, but are available upon request, according to Nilson. City lawyers will conduct research to examine if Baltimore’s non-disclosure clauses are “fair and consistent with best practices.”

Black Man locked up 40 years in D.C. mental hospital for $20 necklace theft

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Washtimes

Four decades ago, police charged him with stealing a $20 necklace, but Mr. Frye was found not competent to stand trial. If he’d been found guilty, he would’ve faced a fine or perhaps a short jail sentence. Instead, he’s spent most of his life inside the District’s psychiatric hospital, St. Elizabeth’s, feeling frustrated with, and forgotten by, the very system charged with looking after his welfare.

It’s a case that raises tricky questions about fairness within the criminal justice system and life inside St. Elizabeth’s. Indeed, for years the court system simply lost track of him.

Through the D.C. public defender’s office, Mr. Frye sought unconditional release in 2008, but his motion was filed on the docket of a dead judge, where it remained until earlier this year — with no apology or explanation from court officials.

“You end up being caught up in the system in a way you wouldn’t have if you were just guilty. It’s a tragedy,” said Steve Salzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and former deputy assistant attorney general.

Mr. Frye, who spoke publicly about his case for the first time in a recent interview with The Washington Times, is entitled to petition a judge for his release once a year. But it took nearly six years for his 2008 motion to receive any attention.

Hospital officials insist they separately review his files on their own and that previous attempts at releasing him into the community have failed.

“Mr. Frye is receiving appropriate care,” D.C. Department of Behavioral Health chief of staff Phyllis Jones wrote in an email.

But elder brother William Frye said nobody should have to eke out their entire lives in a city psychiatric ward. While he doesn’t deny that Franklin suffers from mental illness, he believes life in the hospital itself has made him worse, that anybody would “go crazy” if they had to spend more than four decades inside St. Elizabeth’s.

Advocates challenge Pennsylvania Mumia law as First Amendment violation

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[JURIST]

Mumia Abu-Jamal [JURIST news archive] and supporters filed a lawsuit [text, PDF] Monday challenging a recently passed Pennsylvania law [complaint, PDF] that they claim stifles free speech. The law, an amendment to the Crime Victims Act [text, PDF] titled "Revictimization relief," states that victims of personal injury crimes can bring civil actions against offenders to get either "injunctive or appropriate relief" for any conduct that "perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime on the victim." Opponents of the law, such as the Abolitionist Law Center [advocacy website], argue that it is an attempt by Pennsylvania lawmakers to silence Abu-Jamal and those similarly situated in an unconstitutional manner. They cite the fact that the bill was signed into law 16 days after Abu-Jamal's pre-recorded commencement speech was delivered at Goddard College as a clear demonstration that this law was passed as a political tactic aimed particularly at silencing Abu-Jamal. They also cite statements made by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett at a press conference in which he stated that the law was intended to restrict the ability of Abu-Jamal and other "violent felons" from "using public venues to promote themselves and their own agenda." However, supporters of the law, such as Corbett, claim that it was passed in attempt to remedy the revictimization of all personal injury crime victims.

During An Ebola Pandemic All Of Your so-called Rights Would Essentially Be Meaningless

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BlackListed News

If there is a major Ebola pandemic in America, all of the liberties and the freedoms that you currently enjoy would be gone.  If government officials believe that you have the virus, federal law allows them to round you up and detain you "for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary."  In addition, the CDC already has the authority to quarantine healthy Americans if they reasonably believe that they may become sick.  During an outbreak, the government can force you to remain isolated in your own home, or the government may forcibly take you to a treatment facility, a tent city, a sports stadium, an old military base or a camp.  You would not have any choice in the matter.  And you would be forced to endure any medical procedure mandated by the government.  That includes shots, vaccines and the drawing of blood.  During such a scenario, you can scream about your "rights" all that you want, but it won't do any good.

In case you are tempted to think that I am making this up, I want you to read what federal law actually says.  The following is 42 U.S.C. 264(d).  I have added bold for emphasis...

(1) Regulations prescribed under this section may provide for the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage and (A) to be moving or about to move from a State to another State; or (B) to be a probable source of infection to individuals who, while infected with such disease in a qualifying stage, will be moving from a State to another State. Such regulations may provide that if upon examination any such individual is found to be infected, he may be detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary. For purposes of this subsection, the term “State” includes, in addition to the several States, only the District of Columbia.

(2) For purposes of this subsection, the term “qualifying stage”, with respect to a communicable disease, means that such disease—

(A) is in a communicable stage; or

(B) is in a precommunicable stage, if the disease would be likely to cause a public health emergency if transmitted to other individuals.

In addition, as I discussed above, the CDC already has the authority to isolate people that are not sick to see if they do become sick.  The following is what the CDC website says about this...

Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill. These people may have been exposed to a disease and do not know it, or they may have the disease but do not show symptoms. Quarantine can also help limit the spread of communicable disease.

Kaiser Cleared of Racial Discrimination Complaint by Black Man

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Courthouse News

A federal judge tossed an employee's discrimination complaint alleging that a Kaiser supervisor told him he is lazy because he is black.     

Sam Chiles sued Kaiser Permanente Medical Group in 2011 for racial and age discrimination, harassment and hostile work environment. He claimed that after he transferred to the hospital chain's Santa Rosa facility, supervisors made racial comments to him, bullied him, and treated him differently from other employees.     

One supervisor said that he "felt African-Americans over here are lazy and do not take advantage of what the state offers to them, I guess, as people," according to Chiles' complaint.     

Kaiser sought summary judgment on Jan. 30 this year, claiming that its supervisors had legitimate reasons for employment actions the hospital chain says Chiles interpreted as discriminatory.     

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James, ruled on Sept. 30 that Chiles presented evidence that could support his claims of racially motivated actions, successfully establishing a prima facie case.     

She added, however, that Kaiser provided "legitimate" and "non-discriminatory" reasons for the alleged adverse employment actions.     

"With respect to the bidding process for transfers to other positions, it is undisputed that this aspect of plaintiff's employment was strictly governed by the terms and conditions of the CBA [Collective Bargaining Agreement], which is based on seniority," James wrote. Her 13-page order adds that Chiles does not dispute that he was later hired at Kaiser's Oakland facility based on his seniority.     

The court also found that Kaiser was right to hold Chiles to his assigned schedule.     

"Defendant has asserted a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for maintaining plaintiff's schedule," James found. "Defendant presented evidence that the CBA governed plaintiff's shift schedule while working at the hospital. Defendant presented evidence that plaintiff was awarded a position at the Santa Rosa hospital with specific days and hours."     

She added that under the CBA, Chiles was not eligible to work at his desired outpatient facility because he was the "least senior tech in the MRI department" and that rescheduling patients from the outpatient facility to the hospital where Chiles worked was a business decision to provide "continued coverage" for patients, not to disparately load him with extra work.     

"With respect to the denial of training, defendant asserts that the only evidence plaintiff presented was that his schedule was not compatible with the training dates, which is a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason," James wrote.     Chiles was unable to show discrimination, and James granted Kaiser's motion for summary judgment on all claims.     

"The court finds that plaintiff has failed to produce sufficient evidence to overcome defendant's showing that the proffered reason for its actions are false or that the true reason is discriminatory based on plaintiff's race," James wrote. "Thus, plaintiff has not raised a triable issue with regard to discrimination sufficient to survive summary judgment."     

James also granted summary judgment on Chiles' age discrimination claim, citing the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which protects employees older than 40, but does not "protect workers over age 40 from favoritism toward older workers."     

As for the racially charged comment made by a supervisor, James said, the comment "appears to have been an isolated occurrence."

As more people use cellphones and email, prosecutors increasingly are using tools for monitoring those communications in criminal investigations

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WSJ

A federal judge's recent unsealing of a secret government request for electronic monitoring shines a light on how such applications are kept hidden from the public long after criminal cases that result from them are closed.

The Sept. 2 order, by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, came after Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, filed motions in a Texas federal court to unseal 14 cases as part of an investigation into the confidentiality of such surveillance applications.

The unsealed request for monitoring, involving a drug-trafficking case, was filed on Oct. 30, 2007. It sought approval for a "pen register," a common surveillance tool that records dialed phone numbers and Internet addresses. The subject named in the application pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering and was sentenced in 2012 to two years, nine months in prison.

As more people use cellphones and email, prosecutors increasingly are using tools for monitoring those communications in criminal investigations. Federal courts allowed a pen register 18,760 times in 2012, more than triple that in 2003, Justice Department data show.

The government also routinely asks that the applications for such matters be sealed, a move that ends up keeping documents permanently secret in courts across America. Though judges have long kept matters from the public in national-security cases and continuing probes, the spreading move to permanent secrecy of more commonplace criminal cases contradicts a long U.S. tradition of open courts, according to some legal specialists.

"The broader message here is that the government is keeping stuff sealed too long even if it had a basis for sealing stuff initially," said Brian Owsley, a former magistrate judge who initially sealed the Texas case at issue and now is an assistant law professor at Indiana Tech Law School.

The U.S. maintains that long-term secrecy surrounding electronic-surveillance matters is paramount, even if the criminal cases that stem from it are resolved or closed. Without explanation, the government didn't oppose the application recently unsealed. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case but said as a general matter that sealing requests is "an individualized process."

Oklahoma unveils new execution procedures

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USA Today

Oklahoma prison officials unveiled new execution procedures Tuesday to replace those used in April when an inmate writhed and moaned before being declared dead 43 minutes after his lethal injection began — a situation that renewed debate over what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The new guidelines allow the state to keep using midazolam, a sedative used in flawed executions earlier this year in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona, although it calls for increasing by five times the dose it gave Clayton Lockett in April. Other changes include more training requirements for prison staff and members of the execution teams, and having contingency plans in case of problems with execution equipment or an inmate's medical condition. The new protocols also reduce the number of media witnesses from 12 to five.

California Adopts Fair Sentencing Act (SB 1010). Equalizes Penalties for Certain Crack and Powder Cocaine Offenses.

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The Sentencing Project 

California Governor Jerry Brown has just signed Senate Bill 1010.The legislation eliminates the disparity in sentencing, probation, and asset forfeiture guidelines for possession of crack cocaine for sale versus the same crime involving powder cocaine. The law takes effect in January.

California Governor Signs Bill to Protect Temp Workers

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Propublica

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday signed into law a bill holding the state's employers legally responsible for wage and safety violations committed by their subcontractors and temp agencies.

With the new law, California will have some of the country's farthest-reaching protections for temporary workers, among the fastest growing and most vulnerable segments of the workforce.

The legislation was introduced this year after a series of stories by ProPublica documented abuses and dangers faced by legions of blue-collar temp workers, California labor officials said. It was overwhelmingly supported by lawmakers.

The growing reliance on temp work in recent years has led to complaints from workers nationwide who say they've been cheated on wages or ordered to work in unsafe situations. But their complaints had little impact as temp agencies blamed the companies that hired them and those companies, in turn, faulted the agencies.

The new law is designed to protect low-wage workers, including hotel maids, factory assemblers, warehouse workers, farm laborers, food processors and janitors, who often work for years at the same company, but are paid less and denied the benefits of full-time employees because they are officially employed by a labor contractor.

ProPublica's investigation showed workers arriving at temp agency dispatch halls at 4 a.m., then waiting for hours to be packed onto overcrowded vans and shuttled to assemble products and unload trucks for some of the biggest-name companies in America. The workers regularly faced mandatory fees that pushed their pay below the minimum wage.

Federal and state safety investigations have found case after case of untrained temp workers pulled into food grinders and conveyor belts, asphyxiated while cleaning the inside of chemical tanks or  overcome by heat stroke after a long day on a garbage route. A ProPublica analysis of millions of workers' comp claims found that in California, temp workers were about 50 percent more likely to get injured on the job than their regular counterparts.

Despite these problems, the United States has lagged behind the rest of the developed world in adopting laws to protect the growing number of temps. Faced with similar abuses, countries from Argentina to Korea have limited the length of temp assignments, guaranteed equal pay for equal work, or restricted companies from hiring temps for hazardous jobs.

In most states in the U.S., a worker would have to prove in court that a company had sufficient control over the workplace to hold that company accountable. For example, Andro Tolentino, a temporary housekeeper at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo., has fought for more than six years after his employer didn't pay him for cleaning 122 rooms in April 2008. His temp agency, Giant Labor Services, promised to pay him $3.50 per room, but then deducted fees that wiped out his wages.

Giant was subsequently federally indicted on labor violations. Westin and its parent company Starwood Hotels & Resorts argued that they weren't responsible because Tolentino was Giant's responsibility, not theirs. The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed, ruling last month that Starwood could be held liable for the unpaid wages.

Under the new California law, sponsored by Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, D-West Covina, companies could face fines if the temp agencies they use or their subcontractors fail to pay employee wages or provide workers' compensation insurance. The law gives companies a grace period to get temp agencies to comply.

Teamsters national president Jim Hoffa said in a statement that Brown had closed a loophole that allowed corporations to take advantage of workers.

"Today marks a new era for worker protection in California," he said. "No longer can employers hide behind unscrupulous labor contractors. Workers, no matter if they are temporary or permanent, can hold companies who profit from their labor accountable for violations in the workplace."

The California Chamber of Commerce had labeled the bill a "job killer" and said it would scare away business by punishing innocent companies for violations they were unaware of and had no authority to prevent.

The law exempts homeowners, highly-paid tech workers, trucking and cable companies, small businesses and companies that don't employ more than five temp workers at a time. It takes effect on Jan. 1.

The Supreme Court Is Poised To Cripple The Federal Ban On Housing Discrimination

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From [HERE] The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take a case Thursday morning that is expected to demolish a crucial legal protection against racial discrimination in housing. The case concerns how plaintiffs can prove that governments and developers are discriminating.

Over the course of many years, discrimination by race has become increasingly subtle because almost everybody knows better than to overtly announce racial intent. Nonetheless, data shows that racial discrimination clearly persists. In the housing sphere, a recent study on behalf of the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that black and Asian homeseekers are shown or told about 15 to 19 percent fewer homes than whites with similar credit qualifications and housing interests. During the subprime lending boom, African Americans with good credit scores were 3.5 times as likely as whites with good credit scores to receive higher-interest-rate loans, and Latinos were 3.1 times as likely to receive such loans. And the Federal Reserve found that in 2009, African Americans were twice as likely to be denied a loan, even controlling for income and other qualifying criteria.

In order to prove this discrimination, nine federal appeals courts to consider the standard for discrimination under the Fair Housing Act have permitted plaintiffs to show what is known as “disparate impact” — statistical evidence that shows a policy yields a disproportionate adverse outcome for minorities, without requiring plaintiffs to meet the exceedingly high bar of proving discriminatory intent. Last year, HUD even issued a regulation interpreting the Fair Housing Act as allowing claims of disparate racial impact. This standard has been the bread and butter of racial discrimination claims for years under the Fair Housing Act, which forbids racial discrimination by landlords, homeowners, state housing authorities, and others.

The Justice Department has wielded this disparate impact theory to win expensive settlements against banks accused of race discrimination in lending. In one suit, for example, the mortgage lender Countrywide agreed to a $335 million settlement due to allegations that Countrywide “charged higher fees and rates to more than 200,000 minority borrowers across the country than to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk.” DOJ discovered that in one year, for example, “Countrywide employees charged Hispanic applicants in Los Angeles an average of $545 more in fees for a $200,000 loan than they charged non-Hispanic white applicants with similar credit histories.” Because the law permits disparate impact litigation, DOJ was able to use this pattern of discrimination to win a settlement. Without disparate impact litigation, it is much less likely that DOJ could have prevailed without a smoking gun document where Countrywide’s management confessed to racial discrimination.

Nevertheless, a five-justice majority on the Roberts Court is not expected to look as kindly on “disparate impact,” given its eagerness to review an issue on which all lower courts have agreed, and its hostility to the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, and other means for rooting out racial discrimination.

That’s why civil rights groups have been glad to avoid Supreme Court review in the past. In each of the last two Supreme Court terms, the justices agreed to hear a case reviewing the “disparate impact” standard. But each of these cases settled before the cases were decided, averting a high court ruling on the issue. As corporate lawyer John Culhane told Forbes last year after the Supreme Court agreed to hear another case on this question that later settled, “The perception is the Supreme Court has taken this case because it feels there is no disparate-impact theory of liability, and is prepared to rule to that effect.”

This time, the government party in the case is the state of Texas’s Department of Housing and Community Affairs. And the Lone Star State is not likely at all to back down with a settlement. That means the question may at long last see resolution at the high court this term.

The litigation in this case, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. concerns the placement of subsidized low-income housing in Dallas. A community group that connects individuals with this housing under the federal Section 8 program for housing subsidies argued in a lawsuit that the state was approving developer tax credits for such housing only in low-income and minority-heavy neighborhoods, while denying Low-Income Housing Tax Credit applications in majority-white and majority-Hispanic neighborhoods. The plaintiffs, Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., note that this has perpetuated and actually exacerbated the city’s racial segregation before 1955, which a federal appeals court called “a sordid tale of overt and covert racial discrimination and segregation.”

Both lower courts agreed that the Inclusive Communities Project had proved discrimination by showing disparate impact, and Texas seeks to win the case not by arguing the facts of the case, but by seeking to obliterate the disparate impact standard.

1 month to stop Ebola before it's 'totally out of control' - global aid NGO

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From [HERE] The International Rescue Committee (IRC), on behalf of 34 NGOs battling Ebola in West Africa, has warned that the number of cases is doubling roughly every three weeks and the globe has only four weeks to stop the crisis from spiraling out of control.

Aid organizations have called for a six-point plan to combat the virus at an international summit convened in London to tackle the epidemic.

The charity Save the Children warned that five people are being infected with the virus every hour.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced earlier this week that more than 3,000 people have died from Ebola so-far in West Africa. 6,500 cases have been officially recorded, but the real number is expected to be far higher, as many victims are dying unreported.

The ‘Defeating Ebola’ conference commenced in London on Thursday. It will highlight the scale of the crisis, just after Dr. David Nabarro, leading the United Nation's Ebola response, said that epidemic scares him more than either the early years of the HIV virus and SARS.

READ MORE: Ebola worse than HIV, SARS - UN official

Sanjayan Srikanthan from the IRC, speaking on behalf of aid organizations and NGOs such as Christian Aid and Oxfam, told delegates that the world has a small “window of opportunity” left to stop the disease spreading further.

“Every day we delay in disbursing resources to affected countries, the more impossible it becomes to contain the disease. The international community has a window of opportunity over the next four weeks to stop the crisis from spreading completely out of control. To do so we must break transmission rates and halt the exponential increase in cases,” he says in a statement prepared for the summit.

A WHO spokesman said that transmission is still widespread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone with the number of new cases increasing sharply in several districts. [MORE]

Obama says mistrust of police corroding America

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PBS

The widespread mistrust of law enforcement that was exposed by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Missouri exists in too many other communities and is having a corrosive effect on the nation, particularly on its children, President Barack Obama says. He blames the feeling of wariness on persistent racial disparities in the administration of justice.

Obama said these misgivings only serve to harm communities that are most in need of effective law enforcement.

“It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them,” he said Saturday night in an address at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual awards dinner.

“And the worst part of it is it scars the hearts of our children,” Obama said, adding that it leads some youngsters to unnecessarily fear people who do not look like them and others to constantly feel under suspicion no matter what they do.

“That is not the society we want,” he said. “It’s not the society that our children deserve.”

Obama addressed the Aug. 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown carefully but firmly, saying his death and the raw emotion it produced had reawakened the country to the fact that “a gulf of mistrust” exists between residents and police in too many communities.

The shooting sparked days of violent protests and racial unrest in the predominantly black St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. The police officer who shot Brown was white.

“Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement – guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness,” said Obama, who has spoken of enduring similar treatment as a younger man.

He said significant racial disparities remain in the enforcement of law, from drug sentencing to application of the death penalty, and that a majority of Americans think the justice system treats people of different races unequally.

Obama opened his remarks by praising Attorney General Eric Holder as a great friend and faithful public servant.

The president announced Holder’s resignation this week after nearly six years as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Holder attended the dinner and received a standing ovation. He will stay on the job until the Senate confirms a successor.

“We will miss him badly,” Obama said.

Holder visited Ferguson after the shooting to help ease tensions, and the Justice Department is investigating whether Brown’s civil rights were violated.

There was more gun violence Saturday night in Ferguson when a police officer investigating suspicious activity at a closed community center was shot in the arm. The wounded officer is expected to survive and the police were looking for two suspects early Sunday.

Authorities said they didn’t believe the shooting was related to demonstrations that were taking place at about the same time to protest the killing of Brown.

At the dinner, Obama also announced the addition of a “community challenge” to My Brother’s Keeper, a public-private partnership he launched earlier this year to help improve the lives of young minority men. Communities across the U.S. will be challenged to adopt strategies to help all young people succeed from the cradle through college and to a career.

Obama said government cannot play the primary role in the lives of children but it “can bring folks together” to make a difference for them.

Helping girls of color deal with inequality is also important, he said, and part of the continuing mission of the White House Council on Women and Girls. The effort has involved his wife, Michelle, the mother of their 13- and 16-year-old daughters.

Obama noted that black girls are more likely than their white peers to be suspended, jailed and physically harassed, and that black women struggle daily with “biases that perpetuate oppressive standards for how they’re supposed to look and how they’re supposed to act.”

“I’ve got a vested interest in making sure that our daughters have the same opportunities as boys do,” he said.