Tag: racism

DA struggles to keep anti-white sentiments down

The DA has effectively outlawed the use of all racial terminology, in particular the “B-word” (boer) and the “H-word” (hotnot), both derogatory words used to describe whites and coloureds, respectively, saying they are just as bad as the “K-word” in a bid to cover-up anti-white sentiments surfacing.

Many were shocked by comments recently made in particular by a senior party member, whose name is known to the Cape Argus, who openly declared that he did not vote for “Athol Trollip because he’s white”.

Senior party members and several councillors told the Cape Argus they were “flabbergasted” when the member made the comments, stunning the meeting into silence.

In its quest to combat “across the board” racism in the party, the DA Western Cape Provincial Council met at the weekend to discuss among others the terms used to refer to white, black and coloured people living in the province.

“Boer” is not a term for all whites. It is only used against Afrikaners.

DA provincial leader Patricia de Lille, who is leading the “anti-racism” charge, confirmed that she made reference to the use of the K-word, the B-word and the H-word during discussions.

“The DA does not tolerate the use of racist language. We consider all derogatory words equally repulsive,” she said adding that the party will take disciplinary steps against any DA public representative or employee or member who uses racist language.

The meeting, chaired by provincial party chairman Anton Bredell, consisted of a three-member panel which included Premier Helen Zille, De Lille and deputy provincial leader Bongikosi Madikizela.

Members say issues that raised eyebrows included claims that the “coloured majority was being neglected for the needs of a small black voter base”.

Similarly, concerns were raised about black party leaders being chosen above coloureds, while calls were made that service delivery should be focused on the majority race in the province – the coloureds – who had faithfully voted for the DA.

War on white Christians gaining in the US

The culture war against Christianity is picking up speed, says Patrick Buchanan.

Last week came word Saint Louis University will remove a heroic-sized statue of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet S.J. from the front of Fusz Hall, where it has stood for 60 years.

The statue depicts De Smet holding aloft a crucifix as he ministers to two American Indians, one of whom is kneeling.

Historically, the statue is accurate. Father De Smet, “Blackrobe,” as he was known, was a 19th-century missionary to Indian tribes who converted thousands. A friend of Sitting Bull, he spent his last years in St. Louis.

And as the mission of this Jesuit university is, presumably, to instruct the Catholic young in their faith and send them out into the world to bring the good news of Jesus Christ as Lord and savior to nonbelievers, what exactly is the problem here?

According to SLU Assistant Vice President for Communications Clayton Berry, “some faculty and staff … raised questions about whether the sculpture is culturally sensitive.” Senior Ryan McKinley is more specific: “The statue of De Smet depicts a history of colonialism, imperialism, racism and of Christian and white supremacy.”

The faculty and staff are ashamed of the truth for which Saint Louis University was supposed to stand.

The SLU president should have been honest with the iconoclasts. SLU is a Catholic university that welcomes students and faculty not of the faith. Instead, they try to hide who they are.

Baltimore gets even bloodier

A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore’s 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city’s deadliest in 15 years.

The most recent killings claimed the lives of Jennifer Jeffrey and her seven-year-old son, Kester Anthony Browne. They were identified by Jeffrey’s sister, Danielle Wilder.

Jeffrey and her son were found dead early Thursday, each from gunshot wounds to the head.

As family members cried and held each other on the quiet, leafy block in Southwest Baltimore where they lived, Wilder said she felt as if “my heart has been ripped out.”

Wilder said a neighbor called their other sister early Thursday, concerned that she hadn’t hear any noise coming from Jeffrey’s house: no footsteps, Wilder said, no voices, and no gunshots. But when her brother let himself into the house to check on the mother and son, he discovered their bodies.

“She was in the living room,” Wilder said. “The baby was upstairs, in the bed.”

Wilder said police told her there were no signs of forced entry, and that whoever killed Jeffrey and Browne were let into the house sometime yesterday. Wilder said she thinks whoever killed Jeffrey, who also lived with her niece and grand-niece, wanted to catch her alone, and that the boy was collateral damage.

Thursday’s deaths continue a grisly and dramatic uptick in murders across Baltimore that has so far claimed the lives of 38 people. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.

Arrests were already declining before Freddie Gray died on April 19 of injuries he suffered in police custody, but they dropped sharply thereafter, as his death unleashed protests, riots, the criminal indictment of six officers and a full-on civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that has officers working under close scrutiny.

“I’m afraid to go outside,” said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.

“It’s so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside,” Perrine said. “People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They’re nowhere.”

West Baltimore residents worry they’ve been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them, leaving some neighborhoods like the Wild West without a lawman around.

“Before it was over-policing. Now there’s no police,” said Donnail “Dreads” Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was chased down. “People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren’t pulling them up like they used to.”

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3 on Thursday posted a statement from President Gene Ryan on social media saying that the police are “under siege.”

“The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest,” Ryan wrote. “(Police) are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty.”

Protesters said Gray’s death is emblematic of a pattern of police violence and brutality against impoverished African-Americans in Baltimore.

The 38 homicides so far in May is a major spike, after 22 in April, 15 in March, 13 in February and 23 in January.

With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36.

Ten of May’s homicides happened in the Western District, which has had as many homicides in the first five months of this year as it did all of last year.

Non-fatal shootings are spiking as well — 91 so far in May, 58 of them in the Western District.

The mayor said her office is “examining” the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate.

Source: AP

Scientists train people in their sleep against ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’

Levels of unconscious racist and sexist bias have been reduced by manipulating the way the brain learns during sleep.

A team at Northwestern University, Chicago, played sounds while people slept to trigger and enforce memories of an exercise earlier in the day.

The trial on 40 people, published in the journal Science, showed the changes lasted at least a week.

Experts said the findings had potential in many situations, but also raised ethical questions.

Sexual and racial prejudice are common but may often be unintentional, says the Northwestern team.

They cite studies in computer games when people chose to shoot black characters more often than white ones or men being favoured over women despite having identical job applications.

Breaking bias?

People’s prejudices were assessed with a series of publicly available tests at the start of the study.

They were then given “counter-bias training”. During the session, pictures of faces were paired with words that were the opposite of widely-held stereotypes.

So female faces were paired with words like “maths” or black faces with positive words like “sunshine”.

Distinctive sounds were played during the counter-bias training and were played again at low volume during a 90-minute afternoon nap.

The result was a reduction in sexual and racial bias scores, which persisted for at least a week.

So could this really make someone less sexist or racist?

Prof Ken Paller, the director of the cognitive neuroscience programme at Northwestern University, told the BBC News website: “We didn’t have people interact with or make decisions about other people, so that sort of experiment is needed to know the full effects of the methods we used.

“But we suggest that modifying unconscious social bias is likely to influence the extent to which decisions are influenced by racist or sexist attitudes.”

In a commentary, Gordon Feld and Jan Born from the University of Tubingen praised the study saying: “This is the first to demonstrate that this method can be used to break long-lived, highly pervasive response habits deeply rooted in memory.”

But they cautioned that sleep was a vulnerable state in which people did not have “wilful consciousness”.

They added: “However, Aldous Huxley’s description of a dystopian ‘brave new world’ where young children are conditioned to certain values during sleep reminds us that this research also needs to be guided by ethical considerations.”

Prof Paller said there were similarities to subliminal advertising and that there was an ethical discussion to be had.

However, he continued: “More importantly, perhaps, is the question of whether people in positions of authority in society, such as judges and police officers, and perhaps people who make hiring decisions, should have their unconscious bias evaluated and perhaps trained to some standard.” – BBC.COM

 

Flickr tags blacks as ‘apes’

Flickr is facing a user revolt after a new auto-tagging system labelled images of black people with tags such as “ape” and “animal” as well as tagging pictures of concentration camps with “sport” or “jungle gym”.

The system, which was introduced in early May, uses what Flickr describes as “advanced image recognition technology” to automatically categorise photos into a number of broad groups.

For instance, a picture of a newspaper cartoon can be automatically given the tags “drawing”, “sketch”, “cartoon”, “text”, and “writing”, in addition to whatever else the uploader decides to add to the photo. Other tags the system can automatically append include “outdoors” and “blackandwhite” – referring to the picture’s setting and image type.

But the system appears to be misfiring frequently, and often in offensive ways. A portrait taken by Corey Deshon of a black man named William has been auto- tagged with “blackandwhite” and “monochrome” – but also with the words “animal” and “ape”.

The system itself doesn’t appear to be applying race as a factor, since at least one other photo, of a white woman, was also given the “animal” and “ape” tags.

Elsewhere, photos of Dachau concentration camp have been auto-tagged with the “jungle gym”, “sport” and “trellis” tags, while an instantly recognisable photo of the entrance to Auschwitz was given the “sport” tag.

A Flickr spokesperson said: “We are aware of issues with inaccurate auto-tags on Flickr and are working on a fix. While we are very proud of this advanced image-recognition technology, we’re the first to admit there will be mistakes and we are constantly working to improve the experience. If you delete an incorrect tag, our algorithm learns from that mistake and will perform better in the future. The tagging process is completely automated – no human will ever view your photos to tag them”.

The company is already reacting in a piecemeal manner to the mistags, removing the “sport” tag from many concentration camp photos, and apparently removing “ape” from the auto-tagging software’s lexicon entirely (neither of the photos which were tagged “ape” are tagged as such any more, though both still have the “animal” tag).

Source: The Guardian

‘Cultural Marxism has ruined the UK and South Africa’ (Part 2): interview with Jack Sen, suspended UKIP candidate

What is the real reason you were suddenly suspended from UKIP?

I was suspended from UKIP simply because I refused to toe the party line when it came to discussing the genocide of the Western European people and minority South Africans, and the Marxist imposed double standards Westerners face on a daily basis.

The moment one has the audacity to discuss the deliberate displacement of indigenous people in Western Europe, or murder of Western White people in general, the epithet “racist” is shouted.

Considering I myself have some non-white ancestry (I have an Indian grandparent), I found the “white supremacist” tag used to describe me a tad ironic. I say this as I myself have been abused on occasion for being “swarthy”.

For me the criticism had less to do with race and more to do with the divide-and-conquer ideology being used to tear our societies apart – something you see quite a bit of in South Africa.

Still, I felt something needed to be said.

My wife, English mum, and most importantly my 100% phenotypically white daughter, need someone to stand up for their interests and well-being, and I’ve believed for some time now that I should be that person. That’s what dads are for after all.

The white Western male is quite sadly apathetic – one can say they’ve been emasculated beyond belief by Cultural Marxism, evidenced by the tens of thousands of grooming gang rapes and not one instance of revenge. They don’t have the same fighting spirit one sees in South Africa, or in non-white nations.

After what transpired in Rotherham, where white children were singled out for rape, and the white Leftist establishment did nothing to prevent it, I felt I needed to take a stand, not against the perpetrators of the rape, but the Leftist fiends facilitating it.

If I am the only man in Britain that does so, I’ve done my part.

What was specifically said?

A few weeks before I was suspended I gave an interview to the European Knights Project.

The interviewer asked me about commonalities that existed between the Marxists that wrecked your homeland, and the ones currently destroying mine.

So I rattled off a few names: Ed Miliband, Joe Slovo, Nadine Gordimer and Barbara Spectre. These names are all quite conspicuously Jewish, so I decided to throw a few gentiles in the mix so I wouldn’t appear anti-Semitic, as that was not the plan.

It didn’t work.

Although I never actually came out and said that in places like in South Africa, Sweden and England, where the displacement is at its most intense, Marxist Ashkenazi-Jewish radicals from former Eastern bloc nations are overrepresented in a movement calling for our annihilation, the implication was there, and I was doomed.

Within days of giving the interview – and I still don’t know who reported me – I was being disciplined. Not for anti-Semitism – as there was nothing overly anti-Semitic about my statements – but because I’d dared call the deity, Madiba, a terrorist. Thankfully, the chaps at UKIP HQ had no idea who Slovo and Gordimer were so I was safe… for the moment.

Then, this amateur junior reporter at the Mail on Sunday, named Alisha Rouse, sent me an email asking to urgently speak to me, due to the fact that I had given an interview to a “white supremacist site”. That’s how she worded the email, as well.

Me, someone with an Indian granddad who on occasion had been verbally abused in Britain because of his ethnicity, being accused of white supremacism! The idiotic woman really had no clue what she was talking about, however I entertained her out of fear she would misreport my beliefs.

Rouse then proceeded to waste my time over the phone grilling me about my beliefs that there’s an effort to destroy our culture and her belief that I was again; anti-Semitic. She asked me if I was a racist, I said no, and that was that. The story, although UKIP were petrified of its release, never even made the paper. The reporter was really just trying to make a name for herself by having a go at a well-known UKIP parliamentary candidate. She failed, and I moved on.

Once UKIP heard I’d spoken to her, I was shouted at, threatened and told that I’d better distance myself from all things South African, due to the fact that fact that South Africans were blind to just how racist they were.

Believe it or not, that’s what our Head of Candidates wrote me.

The man didn’t give a damn about the murders, racism and hatred, nor that a few hundred thousand Saffas live in Britain! One would think a party looking for votes would care about the single most important issue Saffa expats care about.

They just told me to keep my mouth shut and never ever speak to a national reporter again.

I agreed and moved on.

Although I understood why I’d gotten in trouble, I was still under the misguided impression that UKIP prided itself on encouraging people to speak their minds, as long as their opinions weren’t based on hatred – which mine were certainly not.

I didn’t see what was wrong with discussing what amounted to ethnic genocide and naming the people behind it. Nor was there anything wrong in giving my opinion to a very widely read website, especially as the initial conversation took place well before my campaigning had started.

I can understand if I’d said that there was war between Jews and gentiles (that’s not my opinion), why that might have been seen as offensive, but simply to point out that what amounts to genocide was taking place in SA and Europe? It made no sense.

In fact, tell an objective Black or Asian who’s not attended a Marxist indoctrination camp, also known as a university, that this is happening, and provide them with a little evidence that Europeans are being replaced. Then go through the names of the people behind the move to displace us, telling them that most of these people are progeny of Eastern European immigrants with Marxist backgrounds. I can almost guarantee that he won’t see racism at all. He reflects, and either agrees or disagrees.

Most of the Asian people I know – especially members of Britain’s Hindu and Sikh communities – actually agree with me. Muslims themselves recognize that one of the most efficient ways to spread and increase the percentage of people subscribing to Islam is through mass immigration and outbreeding. I mean it doesn’t take a genius to recognize what’s happening, nor should we be prevented from discussing it nor be prevented from naming the people behind it.

Then there were the aforementioned tweets sent to Luciana Berger, accusing her of being more concerned with Israel than she was with her constituency in Liverpool. Berger, who just prior to being parachuted into Liverpool from London, chaired the Labour Friends Of Israel organisation, has been criticised by a lot of people for her foreign allegiance and dodgy dealing – so again there wasn’t really anything that controversial in my words.

In fact a Wikipedia article was quoted in the criticism.

Still, Berger, who has made a bit of a career out of feigning moral outrage when confronted with her treachery, and crying anti-Semitism whenever she is criticized for her shoddy politics, phony Labour credentials, and dual allegiance, saw an opportunity… and jumped.

I say this as this is not the first time the repugnant Berger has gotten people into problem over their opinions.

Not being able to openly criticise politicians that have sold our local people out for their internationalist interests is one of the worst things about this nation.

And the woman knows why I called her a traitor. She was angered that I just had the balls to do so, right before an election and in a party that is well-known for pandering to special-interest groups.

How do you respond to charges that your tweet to Luciana Berger was anti-Semitic?

Disseminating truth, when one’s intention was to expose injustice, has nothing to do with racism. Her being Jewish is of no concern of mine. Her being a traitor to this country is.

The right to point out that a morally bankrupt politician with a dual allegiance, who’s paid to serve us, has been corrupted, has to be protected. It’s far less incendiary than drawing a cartoon of Mohammed, something I am certain this vile Berger woman would don a Je Suis Hebdo T-shirt for, yet it was deemed anti-Semitic by the press, and most distressingly the party I’d dedicated the last 6 months of my life to.

In the first tweet I sent Berger, where I claimed she had dual allegiance (she actually has a single allegiance if I am being perfectly honest), and would prefer to send child benefit ear-marked for the poor to Israel and Poland, the evidence is there to back up the allegation.

If she’d been a white gentile and a member of a neo-Nazi organisation that she’d lobbied on behalf of, I would have been equally aggressive. If Berger was Muslim, and say in some sort of Pakistani friends association as its leader, I would have made the same allegation.

That’s what honest men and good public servants do.

With that said, in neither case I doubt anyone would have taken any notice. Although Muslims are protected in Britain, we are still allowed to criticise them. It’s only Jews that are totally off-limits, and this is why anti-Semitism is on the rise again. Knowing you can’t criticise someone breeds resentment.

If I wasn’t anti-Semitic before this event, can you imagine how I feel now?

It’s actions like these that make people angry. I’m smart enough to know there are distinct differences between Jewish people, but knowing that the only reporter at the local Liverpool Echo I ever had a problem with was Jewish, and this politician was, as well, will make some appreciate why people think as they do.

I would like to add my interpretation of UKIP’s actions and mind-set if possible.

Although I first thought UKIP rushed to judgment due to the fact that they were petrified of being branded racist, I am now starting to think that it goes much deeper. The Daily Express just gave more than one million pounds to Mr Farage, leader of UKIP. Knowing what I know about politics and Richard Desmond’s motivation for backing UKIP, I’m no longer certain that what happened wasn’t orchestrated and I was made an example of. I mean Nigel Farage taking time out of his busy schedule to call me an embarrassment on national television? Shameful.

Prior to this incident, many people saw UKIP as a conservative, pro-British and pro-Western party. Do we have reason to doubt that?

I thought so myself when I first joined as the vast majority of the people that are on the ground – the members, volunteers, council and parliamentary candidates – are all very pro-British, Western, and as patriotic as you could envision.

Sadly, the suits at the top prey upon the genuine love of country we grunts at the bottom of the totem pole feel. The fact that UKIP supports fracking Britain to death, cares little for the environment and would allow millions of third-world immigrants in to replace the migrant workers from Eastern Europe, not simply shit the borders most UKIP supporters would prefer, is cause for concern.

Although there’s merit to the idea of civic nationalism, I have a funny feeling that the longer UKIP stays relevant, the more it will gravitate towards the sort of pseudo-nationalism we see in groups like the EDL and Britain First. To be honest, UKIP is starting to remind me a lot of the American Republican Party, and that is certainly grounds for worry as well. I wonder if we’ll be importing Ari Fleischer to run our MI5 next.

What attracted you to the plight of white South Africans, an unpopular cause in Britain if ever there was one?

My Afrikaner grandmother, my love for justice, and the fact that it pains me to see good people dying while the world and people like Ms Berger watch in amusement. I’d have loved to move to South Africa with my family at some point, but it’s simply not possible under the current government. Knowing I can’t even bring my daughter to see where her grandma was born because people are being killed, made me take a step back and think, hold on, you’re unable to move back to SA, but these people are literally trapped and have to live in fear for their lives? I just wanted to make a difference and am happy I have been given the chance.

You say you read some Afrikaans? Did you just pick it up or do you know another Germanic language such as German or Dutch?

I only do as my grandma would sing a few songs to us as children in her native tongue and put Malva puddings on our table at Christmas time. My knowledge of the South African people is more cultural than linguistic, but basically I enjoy the language and want to see it live on in perpetuity. I’d love to see South Africa return to its former greatness. Although change was necessary, what we’ve witnessed is the wholesale destruction of a nation. Handing over the nation to people that don’t have the capacity to run it, is a recipe for disaster.

The poverty, Aids, murder, rapes and societal degradation are evidence that majority rule in Africa doesn’t and can’t work.

Do you consider yourself to be a victim of political correctness?

Yes, definitely but in a slightly different manner than the sort of political correctness we typically see infecting our society. UKIP gave me a lot of rope to criticise grooming gangs on my site, as well as attacking paedophiles, forced sexual education programmes, gay lifestyle indoctrination, but when I directed my fighting spirit at Berger and the people behind South Africa’s demise, I was done. That’s what’s so disturbing about this whole incident. It reeks of being conspiratorial.

UKIP reps have made some truly racist statements over the past few months. From candidates threatening to shoot “peasants”, calling gays “disgusting” and “pooftahs”, to Farage himself making some pretty racially charged statements about Muslims, we’ve seen our fair share of scandals. One common denominator in the abuses was the fact no-one ever criticised Jews or mentioned the word white. Until now that is…

It appears that if you mention Jews – even if it’s fair criticism, or talk about white genocide and Ashkenazi involvement in Marxism, you’re done.

I spent a fortune on my campaign, could have secured 20% of the vote and a possible second place if it weren’t for UKIP damaging me on the telly, as they did, so I am angry and at this point feel I have an obligation to myself, my family and the victims of genocide to speak openly.

What saddens me most is how political correctness has ruined some of the friendships I forged in UKIP.

The fact that not a solitary soul at head office would even speak to me after my suspension tells me all I need to know about how they see candidates that dare tell the truth.

I would like to add that although I was made to feel quite unwelcome by top officials in UKIP, many of my fellow UKIP parliamentary candidates, also perturbed by the direction the party has headed, did in fact reach out. The support from people on the ground in my constituency was overwhelming.

Also, several members of the British National Party (BNP) contacted me via Twitter since the suspension, commending me for my decision to say and do the right thing. One of them put me in touch with BNP party Chairman Adam Walker, who’d heard about how I had been treated by UKIP, and wanted to show support. After speaking to Adam a fair bit this past week I can say without any reservation that I’m genuinely impressed with the manner in which he wants to take the BNP forward and was pleased to see that all our ideals and vision of a better Britain lined up. It’s nice to know authentic nationalism is alive and well!

How did being suspended so close to the election impact you on a personal and professional level?

Imagine seeing your idol, Nigel Farage, calling you an embarrassment, seeing the people that you dined with, who held your daughter in their arms, men that you shared pints of ale with betraying you, as they did me.

Then imagine watching your chances slip away over a few innocuous Tweets, it was quite painful.

Being done with the frauds has taken a great weight off my shoulders. Although they were better than the Lib/Lab/Con regime, they are still a part of the establishment and, in my estimation, controlled opposition that puts up with a bit of abuse as long as they can continue to play the game. The fact that media mogul, Richard Desmond, handed UKIP over a million quid only a week before they suspended me for anti-Semitism tells me that UKIP is done and are no longer worth supporting.

In a way – and although I do feel guilty for feeling this way – I’m glad UKIP had a shambolic result at the election. Hopefully, my ability to demonstrate to the world that UKIP are not part of the solution, with the help of people like you, made some sort of impact. The impact my words have had on the tens of thousands of South African expats that decided to make their voices heard on election day, also makes me quite proud.

How does one fight against political correctness if it so well-entrenched in the mainstream media, universities and parliaments throughout the Western world?

In a perfect world we’d be able to deal with contemporary adherents of the Frankfurt school, as other nations have, but that’s not going to happen in my lifetime.

So one has to use the best weapon we have today – the internet. People have to speak up, defend the right to free speech, accept they will be vilified, but push on as we do. Problem is, not adhering to political correctness can have catastrophic impact on a person’s career as I discovered. It’s a tough call, but all I can say is I can sleep at night because I know I did the right thing.

I have not won the election as Berger did, and might never be as well-off as she is, due to the fact that I am honest, but I can at least live with myself knowing I have done a small part to expose vermin like her and make a difference.

People can also join true natioanlsit parties like the BNP – not to be confused with racist parties.

Other people are going to need to start thinking in the same way, otherwise our civilisation will truly be lost.

Although this all ended quite tragically for me, I think I brought a little exposure to the worst genocide of the 21st century and I am quite proud of that: that of white South Africans. If I can now continue this moving forward, I am satisfied. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to speak.

Case that sparked 3 weeks of rioting heard in France

A French court delivers its verdict in the case of two police officers accused of not helping two youths electrocuted in 2005, whose deaths sparked three weeks of rioting.

The deaths of Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, following a chase by police ignited three weeks of arson and running clashes with security forces in downtrodden French city suburbs.

The two officers, Sebastien Gaillemin and Stephanie Klein, stand accused of “non-assistance to individuals in danger” by failing to raise the alarm after the two youths scarpered into an electricity substation.

They risk a five-year prison sentence and a fine of up to 75,000 euros ($86,000) if found guilty, but both prosecution and defence have called for them to be let off.

Gaillemin told the court during the trial that he had checked twice to see whether the youngsters were still in the substation and, satisfied that they were clear, left the scene.

“As he was not aware of the danger, he cannot be blamed for not acting to deal with it,” said prosecutor Delphine Dewailly.

“You don’t ease the pain of one drama by adding another injustice,” she told the court at the emotional trial, during which both officers broke down in tears.

Daniel Merchant, a lawyer for the officers, said: “There will only be closure if they are let off. The case will then be closed… Ten years, that’s enough now.”

Merchant added that in the case of a conviction, he would appeal on behalf of his client.

However, relatives of the two dead youths — as well as a third youth who escaped with burns — have launched a civil case, seeking a total of 1.6 million euros in compensation and damages.

A lawyer for the families said he was certain the officers were guilty of not coming to the boys’ aid. “Lets call the crime what it is,” said Jean-Pierre Mignard.

Much of the trial turned on one phrase uttered by Gaillemin during the chase.

According to transcripts from the police radio, he was heard to say: “They are climbing over to get to the EDF (electric company) site. If they enter the EDF site, I don’t give them much of a chance.”

During the trial, Gaillemin said he was only aware the boys were running “towards the site” and was not sure they had actually entered it.

Nevertheless, the trial has again brought to the fore the alienation felt by many in France’s ghetto-like suburbs, which Prime Minister Manuel Valls said earlier this year still represent a form of “territorial, social and ethnic apartheid”.

Source: AFP

Sparks backtracks furiously

Allister Sparks, notorious Boerhater, has apologised and blamed “senility” for his comments on Hendrik Verwoerd, in a bid not to push away more black DA voters.

Speaking at the DA congress in Port Elizabeth, he named apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd among “smart politicians” he had encountered in his 64 years as a journalist and analyst.

Yesterday, Sparks tried to cover his tracks: “In truth, Verwoerd and his policies appalled me.”

On the BDLive website , he explained the “context” of his senile remarks.

“I recognised that Verwoerd was a formidable figure. His dominance of his own party was total, to the extent that National Party MPs would hiss with outrage if any opposition MP ventured even a mild interjection. They hung on to his every word as he spelt out the details of his grand scheme of separating the races into ‘separate countries’.

“And he was clever, which is what I meant when I called him ‘smart’.”

Blacks took to social media to complain about Sparks’ vile racism, something the über-liberal Sparks hardly expected as he probably believed his own rants about “white racists” exonorated him from black criticism.

Black students rally in support of expelled Wits SRC president

Support is pouring in for the University of Witwatersrand’s expelled SRC president.

Mcebo Dlamini’s Facebook post that mentioned Hitler has sparked outrage from the South African Union of Jewish Students.

Students from the Rhodes Must Fall campaign and activist group, Open Stellenbosch, are marching in support of Mcebo Dlamini.

The Higher Education Transformation Network also says the decision to expel him was harsh.

It says action is being taken against Dlamini when other students from Cape Town and Stellenbosch universities got a slap on the wrist for racist incidents.

The Network was referring to, among others, the white students who painted their faces black.

‘Black spring has begun’

The American Civil Liberties Union tweeted Friday that “Black Spring has begun” and called on the protesters to make a stand.

On Friday morning, four days after the most violent civil unrest since the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King in 1968, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby had stood nearby before a bank of television cameras beaming her words live around the world.

She announced criminal charges against the officers ranging from assault to murder in the death of Freddie Gray.

Blacks see Baltimore as a rallying point against so-called police brutality and socio-economic inequality in American cities.

“To the youth of the city,” Mosby, 35, said as she announced the charges. “This is a moment. This is your moment. … You’re at the forefront of this cause and as young people, our time is now.”

Organizers billed the big Saturday afternoon demonstration not as a protest of Gray’s death, but a “victory rally” that city leaders have perhaps listened to their cries. Smaller groups of what looked to be several hundred gathered all around the city and made their way through the streets to join the thousands at the main rally.

Chants of “no justice, no peace, no racist police” echoed and crowds of people, black and white, young and old, carried homemade signs calling for peace, as well as printed ones asking for justice. Others wore T-shirts that read, “Black Lives Matter,” a slogan many have taken up in the fight.

Gray’s death happened in a majority black city where black elected officials hold the reins of political power and oversee the justice system. The police department is 48 percent black. The officers charged are racially split — three white, three black.

Minister calls Beeld editor a racist

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula accused leftwing editor of Beeld newspaper, Adriaan Basson, of being racist in a Twitter spat.

Mbalula accused Basson of being racist because he assumed that the minister had engaged in corrupt activity just because he is black.

The spat started when Basson asked Mbalula who had paid for his trip to the Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao fight in Las Vegas.

“Adrian, please note that in the new democratic dispensation a Black man can afford to go to America without using your tax,” Mbalula responded hotly.

He also tweeted that Basson’s “cheap journalism resulted in asking cheap ignorant questions”. It “bordered on “stereotypical assumption [that] all blacks are corrupt,” he added.

Basson defended his questions saying he was only doing his job as a journalist, but blacks on Twitter sided with the minister.

The spat is all the more entertaining as Basson has exhibited a particular fondness for stereotypes himself. He regulary accuses Afrikaners and whites of being “rightwing”, “racist” and “Nazi”.

Hundreds march in Britain, Israel against ‘racism’

Hundreds of people marched through Brixton to protest police brutality and racism, and to show solidarity with the people of Baltimore, US. Baltimore has been seeing a surge in protests after a 25-year-old African American died in police custody.

At least 500 signed to attend the event on its Facebook page and video footage showed hundreds moving down Brixton streets in South London.

“No justice, no peace”, “Africans have a right to resist” and “Reclaim Brixton”, the banners read. The protest was addressed by speakers from families, whose members died in police custody, the London Black Revs, Latin American solidarity groups and others.

Brixton is a multiethnic community, with a large portion of its population being of African and Caribbean descent. It has seen a number of riots over the years. Brixton was one of the scenes of the 2011 riots in the UK capital.

In Baltimore, a curfew was lifted on Saturday after scores of arrests were made over the week, with over 3,000 security forces on the ground, backed up by the National Guard.

The tensions there eased after six policemen involved in Freddie Gray’s death were arrested and charges were brought against them.

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv security forces fired pepper spray, stun grenades during a protest against racism and police violence, staged by Jews of Ethiopian descent in Tel Aviv. Some 23 policemen and at least 23 protesters have been injured in the clashes.

Thousands gathered and protesters tried to break into the City Hall, according to Haaretz. Demonstrators also overturned a police car and threw bottles and stones at officers in riot gear at central Rabin Square.

At least 26 protesters were arrested following clashes, according to Israeli Police Foreign Press Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. At least 46 people were injured, including 23 police officers, Haaretz reports.

They shouted “not black, not white, we’re all human beings” and “a violent cop should be jailed.”

“Being black, I have to protest today. I never experienced police violence against me personally, but it is aimed at my community which I have to support,” 34-year-old protester Eddie Maconen told AFP.

This is the second such protest in a week: On Thursday, hundreds of demonstrators blocked streets and the Jerusalem Light Rail, and marched on the prime minister’s home.

Hillary blames ‘mass incarceration’ for Baltimore

Hillary Clinton blames “mass incarceration” of blacks for the riots in Baltimore. She called for a re-evaluation of prison sentences.

Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for broad criminal-justice reform, reflecting the former First Lady’s evolution from supporting the policies instituted by her husband two decades ago in a period of high crime rates.

Clinton called for body cameras in every police department in the country, as well as an end to an “era of mass incarceration.” Her speech came two days after the funeral in Baltimore of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died while in police custody, and amidst ongoing civil unrest in that city.

“There is something profoundly wrong when African-American men are far more likely to be stopped by the police and charged with crimes and given longer prison terms than their white counterparts,” Clinton said. “There is something wrong when trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve breaks down … We must urgently begin to rebuild bonds of trust and respect among American between police and citizens.”

Clinton offered few specific policy plans in the speech, and didn’t explain how police forces would pay for body cameras on all officers. She spoke broadly about reducing jail sentences for low-level offenders and the effects of imprisoning millions, particular African Americans. “We don’t want to create another incarceration generation,” Clinton said.

Policing experts who reconstructed the events of the day said that Baltimore police did not send enough officers to the situation at the start, failed to quickly make arrests once trouble began and did not deploy additional officers quickly enough.

Key decisions led the situation to spiral out of control in a short 90 minutes, a lesson other police departments should heed.

Source: Time

Seattle, San Francisco, Baltimore face fresh riots

Police say black-clad May Day marchers hurled wrenches and rocks at officers and hit police with sticks as a Friday evening march through Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood turned violent, injuring three officers — two seriously.

Police responded with pepper spray, pepper balls and flash bang grenades. Officers said several dozen vehicles were damaged. Windows were broken in neighborhood businesses.

Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole said one officer had a dislocated shoulder, a second had a broken wrist, and a third had a burn injury to his leg and ankle. They’re recovering at Harborview Medical Center.

“Thankfully, they’re all conscious,” O’Toole said. “We talked to them. They’re in good spirits. Just happy the situation didn’t become more serious.”

The injuries occurred at 7:30 p.m. when officers issued a dispersal order to the group and attempted to clear the street at Broadway and Howell, Seattle police said.

Protesters hurled bottles, rocks, bricks, wrenches, and other projectiles at police, who responded by utilizing pepper spray and pepper balls to break up the increasingly violent crowd, police said. They added protestors also began pushing barricades and trash cans into roadways, and raided a fenced construction site for items they later burned in the street.

A May Day protest and march through the streets of Downtown Oakland, San Francisco, also turned violent Friday evening, with some businesses and cars being vandalized.

Friday’s protest began peacefully. About 500 people protesting several issues, from police brutality to capitalism, marched from Frank Ogawa Plaza and eventually up Broadway. Later on, vandals went on a rampage. They broke windows of business and vehicles and set a car on fire on the Broadway Auto Row.

One of the marchers said she was okay with vandalism that targeted big business.
“I see it like a game of chess and if one day we can throw rocks at police, right or wrong, however you feel about it, then that’s a day we took a stand. And that, in my mind, to some extent, is a win against the system,” Melissa Crosby said.

Baltimore is bracing for fresh protests this weekend, following a tumultuous week that included looting and arson, the arrival of National Guard troops and the filing of criminal charges against six police officers in the case of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose death in police custody set off the unrest.

Thousands of people are expected here Saturday for a march organized by Malik Shabazz, president of the Washington-based Black Lawyers for Justice and a former chairman of the New Black Panther Party. For nearly two weeks, ever since Mr. Gray died, city leaders have been warning against “outside agitators,” an oblique reference to Mr. Shabazz, who is clearly making them nervous.

“They should be nervous,” Mr. Shabazz said in an interview Friday night. “The youth went off and had a rebellion because the established leadership has not represented them well.”

Source: CBS/NYT