Sunday Open Thread

Posted on July 10, 2016 by rikyrah

I hope that you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.

This entry was posted in Gospel, Music, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

91 Responses to Sunday Open Thread

  2. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 10, 2016 at 10:28 pm

    Obama To Speak At Memorial Service For Dallas Officers On Tuesday”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-dallas-memorial_us_57829355e4b0c590f7e9d65d

    May they rest in peace. Sending prayers and sympathy to their loved ones.

    Reply
  3. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 10, 2016 at 9:54 pm

    Just saw you retweeted this, SG2. Glad you did.
    (You are doing powerful work this weekend.)

    https://twitter.com/Nettaaaaaaaa/status/752328342775341058

    Reply
  8. Liza says:
    July 10, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    Posted on Facebook by Michelle Alexander
    July 8, 2016

    ***
    In recent years, I have come to believe that truly transformative change depends more on thoughtful creation of new ways of being than reflexive reactions to the old. What is happening now is very, very old. We have some habits of responding to this familiar pain and trauma that are not serving us well. In many respects it’s amazing that we endure at all. I am inspired again and again by so much of the beautiful, brilliant and daring activism that is unfolding all over the country. Yet I also know that more is required than purely reactive protest and politics. A profound shift in our collective consciousness must occur, a shift that makes possible a new America.

    I know many people believe that our criminal justice system can be “fixed” by smart people and smart policies. President Obama seems to think this way. He suggested yesterday that police-community relations can be improved meaningfully by a task force he created last year. Yes, a task force. I used to think like that. I don’t anymore. I no longer believe that we can “fix” the police, as though the police are anything other than a mirror reflecting back to us the true nature of our democracy. We cannot “fix” the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. Of course important policy changes can and should be made to improve police practices. But if we’re serious about having peace officers — rather than a domestic military at war with its own people— we’re going to have to get honest with ourselves about who our democracy actually serves and protects.

    Consider this: Philando Castile had been stopped 31 times and charged with more than 60 minor violations – resulting in thousands of dollars in fines – before his last, fatal encounter with the police. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Man-shooting-death-hand-cop-st….

    Alton Sterling was arrested because he was hustling, selling CDs to get by. He was unable to work in the legal economy due to his felony record. His act of survival was treated by the police as a major crime, apparently punishable by death.

    How many people on Wall Street have been arrested for their crimes large and small — crimes of greed and fraud that nearly bankrupted the global economy and destroyed the futures of millions of families? How many politicians have been prosecuted for taking millions of dollars from private prisons, prison guard unions, pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, tobacco companies, the NRA and Wall Street banks and doing their bidding for them — killing us softly? Oh, that’s right, taking millions from those folks isn’t even a crime. Democrats and Republicans do it every day. Our entire political system is financed by wealthy private interests buying politicians and making sure the rules are written in their favor. But selling CDs or loose cigarettes? In America, that’s treated as a serious crime, especially if you’re black. For that act of survival, you can be wrestled to the ground and choked to death or shot at point blank range. Our entire system of government is designed to protect and serve the interests of the most powerful, while punishing, controlling and exploiting the least advantaged.

    This is not hyperbole. And this is not new. What is new is that we’re now watching all of this on YouTube and Facebook, streaming live, as imagined super-predators are brought to heel. Fifty years ago, our country was forced to look at itself in the mirror when television stations broadcast Bloody Sunday, the day state troopers and a sheriff’s posse brutally attacked civil rights activists marching for voting rights in Selma. Those horrifying images, among others, helped to turn public opinion in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Perhaps the images we’ve seen in recent days will make some difference. It’s worth remembering, though, that none of the horrifying images from the Jim Crow era would’ve changed anything if a highly strategic, courageous movement had not existed that was determined to challenge a deeply entrenched system of racial and social control.
    This nation was founded on the idea that some lives don’t matter. Freedom and justice for some, not all. That’s the foundation. Yes, progress has been made in some respects, but it hasn’t come easy. There’s an unfinished revolution waiting to be won.

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      July 10, 2016 at 9:49 pm

      Thanks for posting Michelle Alexander’s excellent article, Liza.

      “But if we’re serious about having peace officers — rather than a domestic military at war with its own people— we’re going to have to get honest with ourselves about who our democracy actually serves and protects.”
      ~ Michelle Alexander

      Reply
  12. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 10, 2016 at 7:45 pm

    Tonight in Baton Rouge the peaceful demonstrators are chanting “Take off your riot gear” to the police:

    https://twitter.com/mathsavage/status/752299104261148672

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      July 10, 2016 at 10:40 pm

      Peter Daou is an a*se and a rubbish PUMA who’s only now ‘outraged’ over Maureen Dowd’s long and well-documented disrespect. He’s only offended and only really interested in defending and protecting Hillary, and to the extent that he can as is now par for the course, yoke all things Hillary together with the President – and only to get the President’s supporters all riled up and up in arms, Peter and his ilk are all game.

      This is not about the President being disrespected by Maureen Dowd, this is all about Hillary for Peter Daou…and activating the President’s base of supporters to dubiously whip them up in a frenzy for Hillary by way of invoking President Obama’s name.

      Read his write-up, it’s all about Hillary.

      Besides, we’ve talked about Miss Dowd here in the past fam…and the fact that Miss Dowd just happens to be very good friends with Caroline Kennedy who interestingly has never called off Maureen – even though she very easily can…

      Maureen Dowd has in the past droped some real insider information nuggets earlier on in her columns, that were courtesy of Caroline Kennedy’s inner circle and not entirely complimentary of the President. That is of course until the President ‘made good’ and offered Caroline Kennedy the Ambassadorship to Japan late 2013, to belatedly show his appreciation for her support – and after the Clintons preemptively torpedoed her interest in and bid for Hillary’s Senate seat after Hillary lost her 2008 presidential bid and was given the SoS position.

      In the revenge pay to play and power toss, the Clintons backed the splice-tongued opportunist, and proud Blue-Dog, say anything, do anything to get ahead Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand – who campaigned against amnesty for illegal immigrants and was an ardent pro-gun rights advocate and former intern of Republican Senator Alfonse D’Amato. She’s now conveniently turned “progressive” in recent years even after repeatedly voting against the Democratic President’s priorities alongside her fellow Congressional Blue Dog Coalition pro-gun rights buddy Gabrielle Giffords.

      In those few years since proudly touting her conservative bona fides, even after being appointed replacement junior Senator from New York by Clinton useful black idiot David Paterson …Kirsten now plants bits about herself as a ‘credible’ candidate for president – and was even said to have been in the running if Hillary had not run…LOL..

      Anyhow, I write all this to simply remind my fam, that all of these folks – Maureen Dowd, Peter Daou, the Clintons, Caroline Kennedy etc. all these folks are all about themselves, their agenda, their egos, their political and legacy preservation, their desire to wield and retain power and influence and only for their personal advancement….

      Which at the end of the day has absolutely nothing to do with you and me…except of course that they view ordinary folks as simply firewalls… just useful idiots to be manipulated and exploited for the political aggrandizement and personal advancement of these established narcissists…

      Reply
  19. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    @MsPackyetti 3h3 hours ago
    People w no resources are still inside. KEEP calling.

    Reply
  28. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    Just finished watching Spotlight. Excellent movie. You can catch it on Neflix.

    Reply
  32. SouthernGirl2 says:
    July 10, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    Pray for Chaka Khan. I Feel For You. Sweet Thing!

    https://twitter.com/BreakingNews/status/752224822952853504

    Reply
  34. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    TJ @TerahJay
    Most white folks can’t even handle a simulated “unfair” classroom exercise. So please keep these fake anecdotes of imagined oppression.

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      July 10, 2016 at 2:16 pm

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      To our knowledge, a single person exploited a peaceful protest for the purpose of exacting his own “revenge.”

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      How many THOUSANDS of people have marched/protest/lobbied peacefully under the banner of #BlackLivesMatter since 2014?

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      Mass media has the ability to cast all Black people as a faceless, violent mass. The actions of a single man, amplified by media +

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      give credence to this false narrative that #BlackLivesMatter is a “terrorist” organization.

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      Micah X. Johnson may have been a terrorist, but #BlackLivesMatter is two things: a movement calling America into accountability and +

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      An organization committed to the liberation of Black people. It is not a terrorist group.

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      ISIS is a terrorist group. Boko Haram is a terrorist group. Al Shabab is a terrorist group. The KKK is a terrorist group.

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      That protest & disruption of daily activities is now called “terrorism” in the U.S. shows exactly how privilege creates dissonance.

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      We do not have to accept these false narratives. We can be sources. We can be critics. There are many levels to this fight.

      Meredith Clark, PhD ‏@meredithclark 3h3 hours ago
      That’s my challenge to anyone who sees these tweets today. When you see bias in the news this week, call it out.

      Reply
  48. Liza says:
    July 10, 2016 at 11:18 am

    Posted on Facebook yesterday by Isabel Wilkerson:

    Isabel Wilkerson
    18 hrs ·
    We are numb from what we have seen in recent days. Each news report, each gut-wrenching video is a re-injury, a rewind of the previous traumas, not just of Eric Garner and John Crawford and Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland, but of the names that now seem long ago, eclipsed only because the list is so unbearably long — Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Jonathan Ferrell, to name a few — and because so little has changed. We truly are in a second Nadir. The first Nadir was a term coined by the historian Rayford Logan during the violent, low point of Jim Crow at the start of the 20th Century.

    As we mourn the senseless loss of life in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas and as we search for answers to systemic inequities that are now impossible to dismiss, I hope that we will see our common humanity in these tragedies, both blue and black — violence anywhere is an outrage. I hope that people the world over will honor the courage, fortitude, faith and compassion of people whose fight for social justice continues, whose lives have been devalued throughout history and into the current day.

    The story of Philando Castile, the beloved cafeteria manager at a Montessori school in Minnesota, shot during a traffic stop, is beyond heartbreaking. His girlfriend, Lavish Reynolds, at first documented the aftermath of his shooting with stunning composure, but broke into the anguished prayers that African-Americans and besieged people anywhere, have cried out over the centuries. “Please, Lord, wrap your arms around him,” she prayed, weeping for her boyfriend. “Please, Lord, make sure that he’s okay, that he’s breathing, Lord….Please, Lord, you know our rights. Please, Lord, you know that we are innocent people. Lord, we are innocent people….”

    No four-year-old should ever witness what Reynolds’s daughter was forced to see from the backseat, and yet she comforted her mother. “It’s O.K., Mommy,” she said. “It’s O.K. I’m right here with you.”

    Throughout Reynolds’ interaction with the police officer, she addressed the officer as Sir. In 2014, Levar Jones, an African-American motorist like Castile, was shot by a police officer in South Carolina and showed calm and respect for the officer. “What did I do, Sir?” he asked. He had been reaching for his registration as instructed when the officer shot him. He happened to have survived his wounds; the officer was charged in the case.

    In the two years between incidents, we seem further behind despite all that we have been through as a country. These are times when the wisdom of the ancestors comes to bear. It was Ella Baker, pictured here, the quiet force behind the civil rights movement, who said, 52 years ago, “Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.”
    And, she reminded people in her era, as we need remind ourselves in ours, that none of us is truly free until all of us are: “Remember,” Ella Baker said, “we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.”

    Reply
  49. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 10, 2016 at 10:34 am

    I think it was cruel and heartless that Ofc. Yanez offered no first aid to Philando…didn’t even take Philando’s pulse.

    Here is a 2015 article worth reading:

    “Exploring what it means when police refuse to provide medical attention to their victims”
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/6/2/1389815/-Exploring-what-it-means-when-police-completely-refuse-medical-attention-to-their-victims

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      July 10, 2016 at 10:26 am

      Already a year and we still don’t know what happened to her. Someone should have talked by now, but maybe someday…

      Reply
      • yahtzeebutterfly says:
        July 10, 2016 at 10:49 am

        Sandra deserves justice… It is heartbreaking and frightening to me … I ache so much for her mom and family.

        Reply
  53. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 8:44 am

    Baton Rouge Civil Rights Leaders Fashion A Model Response To Police Shootings

    July 9, 201612:10 AM ET

    …………………

    This afternoon, civil rights leaders gathered on the steps of City Hall, and called Baton Rouge a “model city” for dealing with such tragedies — drawing a comparison to the sometimes violent chaos that overtook Ferguson, Mo., after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, and Baltimore, Md., after Freddie Grey died in police custody.

    Nearly all of those who spoke at the event harkened back to the Civil Rights Movement and urged Baton Rouge residents to channel their frustrations into non-violent civil disobedience, including an economic boycott of local stores planned for this weekend.

    “What we’re aiming for is the true power, the Chamber of Commerce, to feel the pain that we’ve been feeling. And that that pain be so intense that it will force the district attorney to do what he needs to do — that is, arrest those two police officers [who were involved in the altercation that killed Sterling], charge them with murder, and put them on trial,” Reverend Reginald Pitcher, who is president of the Louisiana Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told a cheering crowd.

    …………………………………………

    Sakinah Abdul-Aziz, 21, said she was raised to think about her civil rights by her mother and grandmother, who are both politically active, but speculated that put her in the minority among her peers.

    “It’s like the people in my generation don’t understand the severity of what’s going on,” she told NPR.

    Ky Thomas, also 21, said she avoided previous demonstrations following police shootings — but not for a lack of understanding.

    “I was never really the type to be out here,” she said, “because when the Trayvon Martin case happened I was really upset — like it hurts me, it makes me want to cry.”

    Thomas couldn’t hide from her pain any longer after watching the video of Alton Sterling’s killing in her home city, and she wished more of her peers felt the same. Thomas noted that earlier in the week many of them showed up at nighttime gatherings, playing loud music and dancing on top of cars.

    But now that meetings are focusing on developing a political agenda they are mostly absent.

    “Where are you now? This is where your voice needs to be heard, and no one’s here.”

    Reply
  55. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 8:04 am

    In the Turmoil Over Race and Policing, Children Pay a Steep Emotional Price
    JULY 9, 2016

    In the past week alone, there was the 4-year-old girl in Falcon Heights, Minn., who was captured on video consoling her mother after they watched a police officer shoot the mother’s boyfriend through the window of a car. And there was the 15-year-old boy in Baton Rouge, La., who sobbed uncontrollably in front of television cameras after the similar shooting death of his father.

    Then there were the four brothers, ages 12 to 17, whose mother was shot by the sniper who opened fire on officers in Dallas on Thursday night while the family was protesting police violence against blacks. The mother, who survived, threw herself atop one boy, as the others ran for their lives.

    Again and again, children are finding themselves enmeshed in the country’s roiling debate over police treatment of African-Americans. The close-up views of violence, obviously traumatizing, are giving rise to a generation of young people who distrust authority, grow up well before their time and suffer nightmares that seem too real.

    “As a mother, I have now been forced to raise a son who is going to remember what happened to his father,” said Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of the boy in Louisiana who sobbed over the death of his father, Alton Sterling. “That I can’t take away from him.”

    While adults around them protest and demand criminal justice reform, young witnesses of the carnage are reeling from their losses and harboring pent-up depression that often comes pouring out in panic attacks and breakdowns, relatives say.

    The list of young people burdened by these tumultuous times includes Tamir Rice’s teenage sister, who lost 50 pounds after watching the police shoot him in 2014; the daughter of Oscar Grant III, killed by a transit officer while lying down on a California train platform in 2009, who as a 5-year-old would ask playmates to duck when she saw the police; and the 9-year-old nephew of Sandra Bland, who began sleeping in his mother’s room after Ms. Bland’s death last year in a jail cell.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      July 10, 2016 at 11:26 pm

      ‘…Tamir Rice’s teenage sister, who lost 50 pounds after watching the police shoot him in 2014; the daughter of Oscar Grant III, killed by a transit officer while lying down on a California train platform in 2009, who as a 5-year-old would ask playmates to duck when she saw the police; and the 9-year-old nephew of Sandra Bland, who began sleeping in his mother’s room after Ms. Bland’s death last year in a jail cell…’

      The unending damage they do to our children…

      Reply
  56. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 8:02 am

    THIS, I completely agree with.

    Wimbledon 2016: ‘Serena Williams should be savoured’
    By Tom Fordyce
    Chief sports writer at Wimbledon

    Reply
  58. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 7:53 am

    Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree sees ‘blessing’ despite Alzheimer’s
    July 7, 2016

    (RNS) A Harvard law professor who taught both President Obama and his wife, Michelle, told fellow members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church that his faith is helping him cope with a personal diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

    “I’ve made up my mind to be thankful for what I have rather than focus on what I may lose,” an emotional Charles Ogletree said Tuesday (July 6) in his bicentennial message at a banquet where 3,000 people kicked off the 50th quadrennial General Conference of the denomination in Philadelphia.

    “Nothing but the grace of God and faith enables me to respond this way

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      July 10, 2016 at 11:31 pm

      God bless him…

      I hope he doesn’t give up …I hope he rejects that diagnosis and fights with all his might and with God’s grace…

      Reply
  59. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 7:48 am

    So, I’ve just spent the last hour waiting for the police. Someone hit my parked car. He couldn’t drive away. His car looks bad. But, mine won’t start. Just got off the phone with my insurance company. So not wanting this. I gotta wait for the adjuster to call, maybe tomorrow or Tuesday. Oh well. :(

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      July 10, 2016 at 8:13 am

      Oh no! I am SO sorry to hear that, rikyrah.

      And, having to wait until tomorrow or Tuesday for the insurance adjuster when you need a car tomorrow for work.

      (Keep us updated.)

      Reply
    • Ametia says:
      July 10, 2016 at 8:52 am

      Hi Rikyrah. What a way tos atrt your Sunday. Glad to hear that you are ok. Let us know how it all turns out.

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      July 10, 2016 at 11:51 pm

      Sorry to hear this Rikyrah, but grateful the car was parked and unoccupied…

      Take care ok…the other driver’s insurance should cover the costs for repairs…hope the other driver wasn’t hurt by the way…

      I know it’s all very inconvenient and frustrating to have your day and start of the week completely derailed and messed up in this way…but, if it helps, think perhaps there was something even more awful you are being diverted and protected from with this forced grounding – and not being able to drive around for a bit, the bad stuff passes you by…

      And think also the additional people that this unforseen incident brings into your life even momentarily…good people, important lessons – good or bad that might pay off in the future…ministry for you or for those you will encounter…

      Incidents, good or such as this, bad – when God allows them to happen, are just like coincidences – and in many ways, and for better or worse, God finds a way to use for your good and to His glory..

      Reply
  60. sunshine616 says:
    July 10, 2016 at 7:20 am

    Micah Johnson was treated, by the cops, the way every single black person is treated by the cops. While he may have been the lone perpetrator here the executed him without assessing his mental health. Black people are not valued in this country. The cops also made sure Charles dorner never saw a courtroom either. They killed a war veteran with an instrument of war. They are telling us, not only will we kill u we will terrorize u as well. The police departments have a healthy amount of white supremacists in their ranks and they are without question the most protected class in this country. They have even made more laws that make it almost impossible to prosecute a cop who perpetrated crimes. Please miss me with the war on cops. The cops have had a war on black and brown civil liberties since the inception of cops. The PD’s must be dismantled and they have to be rebuilt. There are generations of white supremacists in criminal justice system. They knew how to work the system because they built it. We need to rebuild a system that works for us as well.

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      July 10, 2016 at 7:52 am

      You speak all kinds of truth. I believe he suffered from untreated PTSD, and then retreated into his own mental hell, which makes me so sad.

      Reply
      • sunshine616 says:
        July 10, 2016 at 8:28 am

        It makes me mad. People do not want to see the truth here. Even when u fight for this country or serve this community, when you snap you are considered a savage, that is, if you are an “other”. When you are the right shade you get to employ the laws your kind made to keep the “others” in check. Those laws aren’t written for them they are written by them. They enforce them and they interpret them. We need new laws written by others in the interest of others because others built this country, fought for this country, and protected this country too.

        Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      July 10, 2016 at 8:00 am

      I spent time on Youtube, listening to people talk about what happened in Dallas, and some of these Black commentators disgust me. I honestly believe Micah Johnson suffered from untreated PTSD, and was, in his own mental hell. He got no help for it, and just snapped. And, all these hotep muthaphuckas out here talking about ‘what a warrior’ he was. He was probably Mentally Ill, muthaphucka. But, he took it to ‘ the Man’, so that’s all that’s important. They disgust me.

      Reply
  61. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 10, 2016 at 6:54 am

    http://www.lovethispic.com/uploaded_images/129389-Morning-Blessings.jpg

    Lord make me an instrument of your peace. Let me sow love and hope.

    https://youtu.be/u90qRE2F7CM&rel=0

    Reply
  62. rikyrah says:
    July 10, 2016 at 2:21 am

    Good Morning 😊, Everyone 😆

    Reply

Leave a Reply to rikyrahCancel reply