'White People Maintain Power & Control by Controlling the Domain of Discourse' - deciding for us what is "news" [they have stopped talking about Ferguson]

Just doing what he's told, coin operated negro Don Lemon moves on to other topics on CNN - he has yet to come out against white supremacy/racism.

Courts says that Nestlé and other countries that sell chocolate from Africa can be sued for using child slave labor

From [HERE] Nestlé and other counties that sell chocolate from Africa can be sued for using child slave labor, a federal appeals court ruled.

Three former slave laborers sued the food manufacturer, along with Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, under a 1789 law allowing lawsuits in U.S. courts for violations of international human rights.

Instead, the court found, the domestic chocolate industry successfully lobbied Congress to defeat a bill in 2001 that would have required all U.S. importers and manufacturers to certify that their products were “slave free.”

The three companies “effectively control the production of Ivorian cocoa” due to their financial and technical assistance, the court found. [MORE]

Marcus Brown: The Pitfalls of Social Media

Daily Iowan

The use of social media has shaped the way people communicate and interact across a variety of media. Texting, snapchatting, tweeting, facetiming, and the like have created an entirely new culture of communication and social interaction with a potential to evolve even further.

From the faux-food critics on Instagram to the distant relatives who track like bloodhounds on Facebook, social media has become an inescapable part of everyday life. It seems unlikely to think that anything so prevalent and culturally accepted could be potentially harmful to our well-being.

But there was a time when cigarettes were thought to be healthy and microwaves gave people cancer. With time, it is easy to disprove popular myths and preconceptions, but meanwhile, a critical eye and willingness to accept new findings both positive and negative become necessary.

Recent studies and research show almost contradictory findings when it comes to the advantages and disadvantages of social-media use. What interests me the most is the research geared toward evaluating the effects on the mental health of children, adolescents, and young adults.

A clinical report in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found 22 percent of teenagers log on their favorite social-media site more than 10 times a day, and more than half of adolescents log on to a social-media site more than once a day. This age group represents an interesting demographic to focus on for mental-health experts because not only is it the biggest market for social media but also the age group to show the most radical effects because of the developing nature of the brain at that time.

On the one hand, use of social media is almost encouraged as a tool to foster communication and interpersonal skills. It can be used to meet new people with common interests and build self-esteem.

On the other hand, almost the exact opposite has said to be true: that today’s youth suffer from a lack of social skills when they’re offline.

Furthermore, psychological disorders found in youth such as depression and anxiety have been linked to the use of social media. It doesn’t make sense to me that technology designed to bridge gaps in communication and connections could be found to incite traits such as mania and antisocial behavior, but that’s what the research shows. [MORE]

New Study: White Peoples’ strong associations of crime with Blacks & Latinos are related to their support for punitive policies that disproportionately impact people of color

From [HERE] This report examines how racial perceptions of crime are a key cause of the severity of punishment in the United States. Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies, authored by Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D., research analyst at The Sentencing Project, synthesizes two decades of research revealing that white Americans’ strong associations of crime with blacks and Latinos are related to their support for punitive policies that disproportionately impact people of color.

Coming on the heels of the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, the report demonstrates that the consequences of white Americans’ strong associations of crime with blacks and Latinos extend far beyond policing.

Key findings of the report include: 

• White Americans overestimate the proportion of crime committed by people of color, and associate people of color with criminality. For example, white respondents in a 2010 survey overestimated the actual share of burglaries, illegal drug sales, and juvenile crime committed by African Americans by 20-30%. 
• Studies have shown that whites who associate crime with blacks and Latinos are more likely to support punitive policies – including capital punishment and mandatory minimum sentencing – than whites with weaker racial associations of crime. 
• These patterns help to explain why whites are more punitive than blacks and Latinos even though they are less likely to be victims of crime. In 2013, a majority of whites supported the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, while half of Hispanics and a majority of blacks opposed this punishment.
• Racial perceptions of crime not only influence public opinion about criminal justice policies, they also directly influence the work of criminal justice practitioners and policymakers who operate with their own often-unintentional biases.

Read the full report here.

Woman Charged With Felony Hate Crime for Calling NYPD ‘Nazis’ in Anti-Cop Graffiti

NYMag

The NYPD does not take making fun of the NYPD lightly. A 36-year-old woman in Brooklyn has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime, plus aggravated harassment, for spray-painting PG-13 punk sentiments on police vehicles and a public school wall in Williamsburg. Her allegedly hateful messages included "Nazis=NYPD" and "a wrongful arrest is a crime." It doesn't get worse!

The New York Post, which has surveillance video of the "blond, blue-eyed vandal," details the suspect's vile beliefs:

The woman scrawled other hate messages on and near a school in Williamsburg: “NYPD pick on the harmless” and “NYPD pick on the innocent.”

Thank God this thug is off the streets.

California Agrees To Remove Mentally Ill Inmates From Solitary Confinement

ThinkProgress

Months after a U.S. federal judge ruled that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CCR) excessively punished its mentally ill prisoners, state prison officials announced the roll-out of policies that would move thousands of inmates suffering from psychiatric illnesses from solitary confinement to special isolation units.

Solitary confinement — the exclusion of inmates from human contact for days, months, and even years at a time — often serves as the primary means of punishment for offenders believed to exhibit violent behavior. Prisoners rights advocates have long argued against the practice, saying that it places inmates — especially those suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia — at great risk for further psychological damage. Previous studies have shown that extensive stints in solitary confinement often lead to hallucinations, panic attacks, increased paranoia, impulse control, and sensitivity to external stimuli that can induce suicidal thoughts.

The new policy, approved by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, would improve treatment for more than 2,500 mentally ill prisoners, many of whom have spent a considerable amount of time in isolation. Changes include increased recreation, access to mental health experts, and an assessment of conditions that could increase risk of suicide. The plan also allows for more collaboration between mental health staff and prison officials, a move that some say could also curb violence against mentally ill inmates.

During their eight-month investigation, federal officials watched footage of one of those violent episodes. The gruesome video showed CCR guards shoving and slamming a prisoner to the ground and later dousing his eyes with pepper spray. A report later filed in a federal court gave CCR’s mental health services a poor rating, stating that nearly 45 percent of the clinically diagnosed mentally ill patients in the state prison system didn’t receive treatment specific to their individual needs.

The document also described staff shortages and a dismal infrastructure in the two state psychiatric hospitals and four psychiatric hospitals ran within four state prisons. Prisoners featured in the report often complained about not receiving access to therapists with whom they could disclose their inner-most thoughts. Inmates also said doctors doled out medication in place of more suitable treatment. Matthew Lopes, special master of the report, strongly criticized California’s Atascadero State Hospital, a facility he said has a history of discharging patients based on their length of stay, rather than their mental condition.

The controversial video and subsequent report confirmed what prison rights advocates and mental health experts have long tried to argue: prisons haven’t provided suitable care needed for inmates in poor mental health. Stories about guards scalding prisoners with hot water and beating them unconscious during extractions from cells have become increasingly common — especially in the years since the 1980s, when mental health resources shifted from local clinics and prisons, causing an increase in the mentally ill inmate population in U.S. prisons that’s ten times more than that of local psychiatric facilities.

That’s why many prisoner rights groups consider last week’s developments a positive step in meeting the needs of prisoners with mental problems, especially at a time when 11 out of 14 suicides in the California prison system happen within solitary confinement. Many proponents, including Michael Bien, a lead lawyer in the class action suit against CCR, said that the changes represent a shift in thinking around the treatment of the mentally ill in prisons. “We’re confident this is going to be real,” Bien told the New York Times. “I think they have a new philosophy that they believe in and they are going to do it.”

Black Unemployment Rate is Twice that of Whites

From [HERE] Nationally, the unemployment rate in the United States has fallen considerably from its peak during the Great Recession, but despite the improvement, the jobless rate for African-Americans is still nearly twice what it is for some groups.

For blacks, the jobless rate in 2013 was twice that of whites, and even greater compared to that of Asian-Americans, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The unemployment rate for African-Americans was 13.1%; for whites, it was 6.5%. American Indians and Alaska Natives also had a high jobless rate of 12.8%, while the unemployment rate among Hispanics was 9.1%. Asians had the lowest unemployment rate at 5.2%.

Some of the African-American jobless rate can be attributed government cutbacks leading to fewer jobs in the public sector, where blacks are less likely to encounter discriminatory hiring practices.

When African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans do find jobs, they’re generally paid less than others in similar positions. According to the BLS report, “the median usual weekly earnings of Asian men ($1,540) and white men ($1,359) working full time in management, professional, and related occupations (the highest paying major occupation group) were well above the earnings of Hispanic men ($1,082) and black men ($1,002) in the same occupation group.”

Missouri court official said "Michael Brown was never convicted of a serious A-level or B-level felony as a juvenile and was not facing any charges at the time of his death."

ThinkProgress

Less than a week ago, the conservative website Independent Review Journal produced an article hyping an allegation that Michael Brown — the unarmed teenager killed in Ferguson — was arrested for second-degree murder. The piece was a viral sensation, shared over 63,000 times on various social networks.

The piece was based on a series of tweets by Charles C. Johnson, an “independent” right-wing reporter. Johnson cited “two law enforcement contacts.”

Johnson then filed a lawsuit in Missouri demanding the release of Michael Brown’s juvenile record. The lawsuit, which was posted on the Independent Review Journal, reads like a political diatribe. Under a section called “General Allegations,” the lawsuit states “there is a substantial portion of the country that believes that Officer Wilson murdered an unarmed African American young man and believes that police and other authorities are attempting to cover-up the ‘homicide’ to protect a white police offer.” What Brown’s juvenile criminal record has to do with this — if anything — is left to the reader’s imagination.

Today, during a hearing on a similar suit filed by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “[a] Missouri court official said … that Ferguson police-shooting victim Michael Brown was never convicted of a serious A-level or B-level felony as a juvenile and was not facing any charges at the time of his death.” This means that Brown was never convicted of second degree murder and was not facing charges of second degree murder at the time of his death.

The International Review Journal story, and the reporting of Charles C. Johnson, in other words, were meritless. It’s possible, of course, that Brown at one point was charged with second degree murder and those charges were dropped or he was found not guilty. But there is absolutely no evidence that that scenario is true. Even if it were true, it’s hard to understand why Brown being accused of a crime he was not guilty of would justify, in whole or in part, a police officer shooting him dead.

The author of the piece, Kyle Becker, continued to defend it on Twitter:

Mississippi hasn't had an execution in two years, and state Attorney General Jim Hood says he can't predict when another might occur.

The Dispatch

White Judge Gives Humane, Minimum Sentence for White Man who Murdered Unarmed Black Woman Seeking Help after car crash [shot in face w/shotgun]

From [HERE] A suburban white man who killed an unarmed Black woman on his porch instead of calling police was sentenced on Wednesday to at least 17 years in prison after telling the victim's family he would carry "guilt and sorrow forever."

Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway, who is white, followed the recommendation of white prosecutors in the case of Theodore Wafer, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride.

Wafer, a Dearborn Heights resident, admitted to blasting Renisha McBride in the face with a shotgun through a locked screen door, killing her instantly as she stood on his front porch early during the morning of Nov. 2, 2013, allegedly seeking help after a car accident. The judge said. "I do not believe that you're a cold-blooded murderer or that this case had anything to do with race or that you're some sort of monster." [MORE]