You Can't Shame the Devil, but You Can Put Lipstick on a Proverbial Pig

January 19, 2015


Rashard Zanders – Twin Cities, MN – Congrats to the NFL, the nation's richest non-profit organization made canyons of money yesterday from their conference championship games. Winners yesterday were Russell Wilson, who led the Seattle Seahawks to a startling comeback against the Green Bay Packers from 12 points down with the game apparently locked away,and Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, who felled the upstart Indianapolis Colts handily.


I just hope with his continued success, Mr. Wilson, (who I predicted would get at least one title within his first three years—now has a chance to make it two) can make enough money so he doesn't have to endorse American Family Insurance his whole career. http://prospect.org/article/indelible-color-line


American Family Insurance is not alone among racially discriminating insurance companies, however, they were the most notorious in Wisconsin – Milwaukee in particular and Madison where I lived. Since Mr. Wilson did play his last year of college football there, and American Family Mutual Insurance Company is headquartered there it was inevitable the company would latch on to the young superstar's success. In two weeks Russell Wilson is playing to become the first repeat NFL Champion in over a decade, and his squeaky pure image is just what AMFMI needed. A perfect marriage putting the perfect Black athlete in the service of one of this nations most enthusiastic proponents of underwriting discrimination. According to the American Prospect article cited above:


“Real estate agents and federal housing officials long listened to sociologist and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) advisor Homer Hoyt, who concluded in 1933 that [B]lacks and Mexicans had a very detrimental effect on property values. In its 1939 Underwriting Manual the FHA warned of "inharmonious racial groups" and concluded that "if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes." Until the 1960s the FHA insured the financing of many homes in white suburban areas while providing virtually no mortgage insurance in the urban markets where minorities lived. Similarly, until the 1950s the National Association of Realtors officially "steered" clients into certain neighborhoods according to race, advising that "a realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood."


In fact, American Family Mutual Insurance faced litigation and lost according to the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) http://www.prrac.org/full_text.php?text_id=773&item_id=7802&newsletter_id=65&header=Race+%2F+Racism


“No insurance, no loan; no loan, no house; lack of insurance thus makes housing unavailable.” So said the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in NAACP v. American Family Mutual Insurance Company, a case that resulted in a 1995 settlement worth $14.5 million, including subsidized home purchase loans, greater access to insurance policies, and other forms of reinvestment for [B]lack neighborhoods in inner-city areas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin."


While I am rooting for the Seattle Seahawks over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX, it will be the first full game I'll see all year I have chosen to boycott broadcast sports, at least most of the regular season, since 2007. Between the internet, the radio, daily box scores and bars, I get my sports overload without giving them my entire Sunday anymore. And I will be the loudest to cheer if and when Russell Wilson becomes the first Black quarterback to repeat and lead his team to the championship.


Still, I hope Mr. Wilson becomes as studious with his business choices as he is with his playbook Off the field, I'd rather he weren't the lipstick on the American Family pig.



Rashard Zanders is a musician and writer from Chicago stuck in the Twin Cities, hoping each winter will be his last. He lives with Thrilla, a wonderful tortoiseshell Cat. He'll Play the Blues for You. He can be reached for comment at 872.228.4179, alex.zandersIV@gmail, or if you're in the Twin Cities he's at the cafe'.

Economic disparities, police brutalities, torture in our prisons and abroad, police state-war economy: When do we say Enough?

Saturday, January 17, 2015 noon

http://documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases?ref=us#p=1

Rashard Zanders, Twin Cities, MN -- A culture that rapes and steals land from one People and enslaves another People from another land to build their Utopia -- using rape, murder, deception, mis-education and lessons from the Bible -- could be expected in it's time to achieve at best a culture of permanent disparity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323883/Johnny-Milanos-chilling-photos-American-Nazis-annual-National-Socialist-Movement-convention-Atlanta.html

The genocidal origins of the Land of the Free(land) and the Home of the alleged Brave would not beget an subsequent racial melting pot never had, and seems apparent that it never will. What we have inherited are: hyper violent power-and-control mechanisms via the military (this has always included the police as an occupying force), a propaganda machine believed by the masses to be innocuous entertainment (Hollywood) or reliable news (majority of Euro-centric news sources, many so-called alternatives presses and websites) participates, (under the umbrella of only 6 corporations) in a long practiced art of obfuscation, dismissal and/or outright distortions of issues facing communities of color.

http://documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases?ref=us#p=1

Here's to hoping 2015 witnesses a re-invigoration of the spiritual radical traditions of the ancestors we honor but whose wisdom we rarely feel the need to heed.  Cable and Dish are just too damn fun I suppose. But if you've stayed with me thus far you already know we are connected to a global struggle for Human Rights, a Pan-African struggle that transcends religion, creed, gender, sexuality, but is exclusively and violently exercised against people of color.  Black people, with or without our "allies" must confront this damning indictment of American history, culture and policy.  It is a prism through which all American history and  policies needs to be viewed.  It is a prism via which Blacks must learn to profile all the beneficiaries and institutions of white privilege.

Rashard Zanders is a freelance writer and editor whose views strangely parallel those of Blacklogic.blogspot.com.  He can be reached at 872.228.4179 or via email at alex.zandersIV@gmail.com

American illusions succumb to Amerikkkan realities

Thursday, January 15, 2015

AMERICAN ILLUSIONS SUCCUMB TO AMERIKKKAN REALITIES
by Rashard Zanders, MN

"The arrests have raised questions about a

double standard for free speech here, with

one set of rules for the cartoonists who

freely skewered religions of all kinds,

even when Muslims, Catholics and others

objected, and yet were defended for their

right to do so, and another set for the

statements by Muslim supporters of the

gunmen, which have led to their

prosecution."


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/world/europe/french-rein-in-speech-backing-acts-of-terror.html?_r=0


So where did all those concerns about

American torture go? Or the entrenched

culture of violence and brutality against

Persons of Color in the United States?  At

Blacklogic.blogspot.com it would appear as

though America is flying without a moral

compass.  Wouldn't it be nice if one of our

go-to Black, Brown, Red, Yellow or Arab

boogey-men would kick the year off with a

nice, well-timed terrorist attack?  Sure

would go a long way in making people forget

about the aforementioned transgressions.

In homage to the elders, scholars, teachers

activists and thinkers who warned us via

Pan African, Afro-feminist,

eco/environmental and Human Rights

perspectives,  we revive

Blacklogic.Blogspot.com in the tradition of

the most intellectually sound thinkers, now

unimpeachably prophetic, those Philosophers

born from Struggle.

And this brings us to a much needed

reevaluation of the Civil Rights Movement,

whose historical import, Selma and

Hollywood romances not withstanding, has

been co-opted by the very culprits who were

it's target.  One of the accidental

blessings of social media --because making

your own dossier for the whole world to see

IS so Big Brother -- has been it's ability

to broadcast to us the Bay Transit Cop

shooting of Oscar Grant, the Ferguson and

Eric Garner deaths, and it's ability to

demystify the true function of the armed and

dangerous thin blue line we call police.

The another element which must force Black

Church leaders in particular, given the

role of the Black pastor as THE community

patriarch, are the American torture

revelations, too many, vast and detailed to

list all here.  Do we go on pretending that

this enemy is going to allow some mythic

equality when his very existence depends on

the slow and impoverished negations of our

own?  If 2014 ended with any lesson,

besides that we are ruled by war criminals,

is that "You can't shame the Devil": The

Devil feels no shame.

The American illusion has given way to the

Amerikkkan reality.  Despite the shootings

at the paper in France, the cutthroat

Western values that even the

disenfranchised love so much have been

invalidated by the violence, deception and

fear that lies beneath.

And Dr. King himself, on this day the Nation mocks his memory and his values, had evolved his philosophy to engage America for it's global sins, and tie the Civil Rights struggle to the global Human Rights  Struggle and the rest of the Pan African Diaspora; To profile Amerikkaa, as we are profiled by everyone daily, for it's toxic blankets given to Natives on the Trail of Tears,  for the Tortures and family  dissolution that nurtured American slavery, for the rape and pillaging of this land from Red People, there is much that Amerikka has to answer for which she and her European allies are unwilling to do. The west has no moral compass.  This we know to be true.The apparent fear is we wake up to this before every their self-made boogeyman have been spent.


Rashard Zanders is a freelance writer and 

grantmaker and coffee addict from Chicago, 

IL, now living in Minneapolis, with his Cat 

Thrilla.  He can be reached at 

872-228-4179.

Killing chidren with impunity: From Mississippi to Gaza

Another one on the mark from ICH

The continuing American hatred for Black life

Guards acquitted in death of Black youth...no surprise there.

Shame.



Guards Acquitted in Boot Camp Case




PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) -- Eight former boot camp workers were acquitted of manslaughter Friday in the death of a 14-year-old boy who was videotaped being punched and kicked. The scene sparked outrage and changes in the juvenile system, but it took jurors just 90 minutes to decide it was not a crime.

Anger over the verdict was obvious outside the courtroom, where bystanders screamed "murderer" at former guard Henry Dickens as he described his relief at the verdict.

Martin Lee Anderson died a day after being hit and kicked by Dickens and six other guards as a nurse watched, a 30-minute confrontation that drew protests in the state capital and spelled the end of Florida's system of juvenile boot camps.

"I am truly, truly sorry this happened. Myself, I love kids," said Dickens, 60. He added that Anderson "wasn't beaten. Those techniques were taught to us and used for a purpose."

The defendants testified that they followed the rules at a get-tough facility where young offenders often feigned illness to avoid exercise. Their attorneys said that Anderson died not from rough treatment, but from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder.

The boy's mother, Gina Jones, stormed out of the courtroom. "I cannot see my son no more. Everybody see their family members. It's wrong," she said, distraught.

"You kill a dog, you go to jail," said her lawyer, Benjamin Crump. "You kill a little black boy and nothing happens." He spoke outside court, which is across the street from the now-closed Bay County boot camp.

Anderson's family repeatedly sat through the painful video as it played during testimony. They had long sought a trial, claiming local officials tried to cover up the case. The conservative Florida Panhandle county is surrounded by military bases and residents are known for their respect for law and order.

The guards, who are white, black and Asian, stood quietly as the judge read the verdicts. The all-white jury was escorted away from the courthouse and did not comment.

Special prosecutor Mark Ober said in a statement he was "extremely disappointed," but added, "In spite of these verdicts, Martin Lee Anderson did not die in vain. This case brought needed attention and reform to our juvenile justice system."

The defendants would have faced up to 30 years in prison had they been convicted of aggravated manslaughter of child. The jury also decided against convicting them of lesser charges, including child neglect and culpable negligence.

Chuck Hobbs II, an attorney for the Florida chapter of the NAACP, said his group was considering asking the Justice Department to bring federal civil-rights charges against the guards. Defense attorneys called such a case unlikely.

"With a 90-minute verdict after a three-week trial (in the state case), it would be the same result," said attorney Bob Sombathy, who represents ex-guard Patrick Garrett.

Aside from hitting Anderson, the guards dragged him around the military-style camp's exercise yard and forced him to inhale ammonia capsules in what they said was an attempt to revive him. The nurse stood by watching.

Defense attorneys argued that the guards properly handled what they thought was a juvenile offender faking illness to avoid exercising on his first day in the camp. He was brought there for violating probation for stealing his grandmother's car and trespassing at a school.

The defense said Anderson's death was unavoidable because he had undiagnosed sickle cell trait, a usually harmless blood disorder that can hinder blood cells' ability to carry oxygen during physical stress.

Prosecutors said the eight defendants neglected the boy by neglecting his medical needs after he collapsed while running laps. They said the defendants suffocated Anderson by covering his mouth and forcing him to inhale ammonia.

"You may not hear anything coming out of that video sound-wise, but that video is screaming to you in a loud, clear voice, it is telling you that these defendants killed Martin Lee Anderson," prosecutor Scott Harmon said in his closing argument.

Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, when he was taken off life support, a day after the altercation. The case quickly grew and shook up the state's boot camp and law enforcement system amid the boy's family alleging a cover-up.

An initial autopsy by Dr. Charles Siebert, the medical examiner for Bay County, found Anderson died of natural causes from sickle cell trait. A second autopsy was ordered and another doctor concluded that the guards suffocated Anderson through their repeated use of ammonia capsules and by covering his mouth.

"I am feeling a little vindicated. People got to see a lot more than what's been publicized in the media," said Siebert, who was widely criticized for his autopsy. He said he was going to celebrate with some of the guards.

Anderson's death led to the resignation of Florida Department of Law Enforcement chief Guy Tunnell, who established the camp when he was Bay County sheriff.

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush had been a strong supporter of the juvenile boot camps, but after Anderson's death he backed the Legislature's move to shut down the system and put more money into a less militaristic program.

Bush appointed Mark Ober, state attorney for Hillsborough County, as special prosecutor in the case. Bush also scolded Tunnell for exchanging e-mails with current Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, in which he criticized those who questioned the effectiveness of the boot camp concept. He also made light of the protesters in the state capital.

The Legislature agreed to pay Anderson's family $5 million earlier this year to settle civil claims.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BOOT_CAMP_DEATH?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US