Sunday Open Thread

Posted on June 7, 2015 by rikyrah

ENOUGH SAID

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40 Responses to Sunday Open Thread

    • Liza says:
      June 7, 2015 at 11:25 pm

      Amy Goodman reported on this too.

      Wednesday, October 1, 2014
      Accused of Stealing a Backpack, High School Student Jailed for Nearly Three Years Without Trial

      We look at the incredible story of how a 16-year-old high school sophomore from the Bronx ended up spending nearly three years locked up at the Rikers jail in New York City after he says he was falsely accused of stealing a backpack. Kalief Browder never pleaded guilty and was never convicted. Browder maintained his innocence and requested a trial, but was only offered plea deals while the trial was repeatedly delayed. Near the end of his time in jail, the judge offered to sentence him to time served if he entered a guilty plea, and warned him he could face 15 years in prison if he was convicted. But Browder still refused to accept the deal, and was only released when the case was dismissed. During this time, Browder spent nearly 800 days in solitary confinement, a juvenile imprisonment practice that the New York Department of Corrections has now banned. We are joined by reporter and author Jennifer Gonnerman, who recounts Browder’s story in the current issue of The New Yorker. We also speak with Browder’s current attorney, Paul Prestia, who has filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, the New York City Police Department, the Bronx District Attorney, and the Department of Corrections, on Browder’s behalf.

      Read more…

      http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/1/accused_of_stealing_a_backpack_high

      Reply
    • Liza says:
      June 7, 2015 at 11:32 pm

      And this:

      Friday, April 24, 2015
      Watch: Explosive Footage from Inside Rikers Jail Shows Guard Beating Teen Accused of Backpack Theft
      (Video at link)

      Explosive video obtained by The New Yorker depicts extreme violence inside New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex. Surveillance camera footage shows former teenage prisoner, Kalief Browder, being abused on two separate occasions. In one clip from 2012, the teenager is seen inside Rikers’ Central Punitive Segregation Unit, better known as the Bing. As a guard escorts Browder to the showers, Browder appears to speak, and then the guard suddenly violently hurls him to the floor although he’s already handcuffed. In a separate video clip from 2010, Browder is attacked by almost a dozen other teenage inmates after he punches a gang member who spat in his face. The other inmates pile onto Browder and pummel him until guards finally intervene. In an exclusive interview, we are the first to speak about the video with New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman, who told Browder’s story in The New Yorker last year, describing how he spent nearly three years at Rikers after arriving there as a 16-year-old high school sophomore following his refusal to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit — stealing a backpack. “Footage [from inside Rikers] like this never, ever comes out,” Gonnerman says. “This is what goes on when nobody is looking.”

      Read more…

      http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/24/watch_explosive_footage_from_inside_rikers

      Reply
    • Liza says:
      June 7, 2015 at 11:39 pm

      This is just so extremely and horrifically wrong. I was so hoping this kid would be okay.

      Reply
  6. rikyrah says:
    June 7, 2015 at 7:15 pm

    I have been trying to keep my spirit up, but reading about the death of Kalief Browder has brought me to tears.
    I AM TIRED OF THEM PHUCKING WITH OUR CHILDREN!!!!!!

    Reply
  7. rikyrah says:
    June 7, 2015 at 6:37 pm

    Watched a Cspan2 program with the head of the Schomburg Center in New York. The head is the great-grandson of Elijah Muhammad.

    Reply
  8. rikyrah says:
    June 7, 2015 at 4:53 pm

    I am back from seeing Spy. It was hilarious.

    Reply
  10. Ametia says:
    June 7, 2015 at 3:38 pm

    bikers who killed 9 people sat around texting, while surrounded by cops

    Black teens being terrorized, thrown to the ground, chased by a cop with a gun, for being at a POOL PARTY….

    BECAUSE?

    White folks called cops, too manyof them in the neighborhood!

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      June 7, 2015 at 3:56 pm

      This is so wrong, so disturbing, and how in the blazing hell can something so ingrained, so systemic, and so evil ever be eradicated? Of course, the cops could be dealt with, if the nation had the will to do so.

      These people who call the cops in situations like this, where they know damn well there is no reason to call the cops, are hoping that someone gets killed. They are hoping that the cops kill more black kids. I am CONVINCED that is true.

      Reply
      • Ametia says:
        June 7, 2015 at 4:05 pm

        No doubt these adults who are calling the cops know the outcomes of these kinds of encounters. And yes, the cops are happy to oblige. Just horrific

        Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      June 7, 2015 at 4:52 pm

      Swimming while Black.
      SWIMMING WHILE BLACK!!!!!!!!

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 7, 2015 at 6:53 pm

      “…Because here’s the thing — the road ahead is not going to be easy. It never is, especially for folks like you and me. Because while we’ve come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn and they haven’t fully gone away. So there will be times, just like for those Airmen, when you feel like folks look right past you, or they see just a fraction of who you really are.

      The world won’t always see you in those caps and gowns. They won’t know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day — the countless hours you spent studying to get this diploma, the multiple jobs you worked to pay for school, the times you had to drive home and take care of your grandma, the evenings you gave up to volunteer at a food bank or organize a campus fundraiser. They don’t know that part of you.

      Instead they will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world…”

      Reply
  11. Kathleen says:
    June 7, 2015 at 3:16 pm

    Greetings, Chics & Chicettes! Why is it “alleged” white criminals (if they’re white they’re always “alleged”, like the newsbots keep saying about the Duggars who admitted to Josh’s fondling) always get cute, outlaw-ish, maverick-y nicknames like “Sock-Hat Bandit”?:

    http://www.wlwt.com/news/sock-hat-bandit-strikes-again-allegedly-robs-bank-no-8/33443610

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      June 7, 2015 at 2:11 pm
      Reply
    • Liza says:
      June 7, 2015 at 3:42 pm

      Dear Lord. Well, miraculously the cops managed not to kill anyone. I feel so bad for these kids. They are just coming of age, they can’t possibly know the depth and breadth racism in America, or why they were targeted. But they know that cops can be murderers and their first impulse is to run from them. Then, lo and behold, the cops once again prove that they are reckless, dangerous, racist a$$holes.

      Time for some lawsuits I would say.

      Reply
      • Liza says:
        June 7, 2015 at 3:44 pm

        ** depth and breadth of racism in America **

        Reply
      • Ametia says:
        June 7, 2015 at 3:54 pm

        Liza, the black teens who were at the party all leave with a consolation prize,
        THEIR LIVES, this time around.

        These kids have to be grateful to just make it out alive, for not being slaughtered for being at a pool party among racists, hateful scum. How crazy and unjust is this.

        What about the next encounter with these racist, terrotist PIGS?!!

        Reply
      • Liza says:
        June 7, 2015 at 4:02 pm

        It’s the Jim Crow way of thinking, that folks are supposed to know their place, where they belong and where they don’t belong. Of course, this is 2015, but the white folks living in that neighborhood have their heads in 1950. I said in another comment above that I believe these white folks calling the cops when there is no need to call the cops are hoping that a black kid will be murdered. They like it when that happens. I am convinced.

        Reply
      • Ametia says:
        June 7, 2015 at 4:11 pm

        They are KIDS, yet these black KIDS are not viewed as KIDS. BLACK SKIN, that’s all it requires these days.

        I continue to believe that all these shootings & killings of black people by cops has been ACTIVATED as a PROXY for our BLACK PRESIDENT.

        Reply
      • Liza says:
        June 7, 2015 at 4:33 pm

        Yeah, the evil was pre-existing but held in check, somewhat. Once PBO was elected, all hell broke loose and social media captured it, put it on full display so there can be no denial. The cops are doing what many white people want them to do.

        Reply
      • rikyrah says:
        June 7, 2015 at 4:52 pm

        Lawsuits everywhere!!

        Reply
      • eliihass says:
        June 7, 2015 at 7:03 pm

        “…the realization that no matter how far you rise in life, how hard you work to be a good person, a good parent, a good citizen — for some folks, it will never be enough.

        And all of that is going to be a heavy burden to carry. It can feel isolating. It can make you feel like your life somehow doesn’t matter — that you’re like the invisible man that Tuskegee grad Ralph Ellison wrote about all those years ago. And as we’ve seen over the past few years, those feelings are real. They’re rooted in decades of structural challenges that have made too many folks feel frustrated and invisible…”

        Reply
  13. Ametia says:
    June 7, 2015 at 1:05 pm

    Ashley & Hnter Biden’s Eulogies for Beau videos are now posted.

    Reply
  15. rikyrah says:
    June 7, 2015 at 10:30 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    Reply
  16. Ametia says:
    June 7, 2015 at 8:27 am

    Good Morning, Everyone. :-)))

    Reply

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