Some days it’s not worth getting out of bed. The news always seems terrible, and as a woman of color, I feel estranged from the greater society.
The stories I read are insane. This morning I read a story that the Supreme Court made it legal for trained cops to murder unarmed civilians if a cop feels threatened. Cops only need to utter the words without proof. Cops cannot be sued and officially have a license to murder innocent people by just uttering the phrase, ‘I felt threatened.’ Police officers are public servants trained and paid by tax dollars to protect and serve the public not themselves. Do you think the supreme court made the right decision in giving police officers the right to murder Americans at will?
Do you think self-defense can be employed to protect Americans against police violence?
How can an armed and trained cop feel threatened by a kid running away from him? How can an armed and trained cop feel threatened when they outnumber the suspect? Why are armed and trained cops mostly threatened by unarmed POC and not by armed whites?
If armed and trained cops can feel threatened by an unarmed black man, can you imagine how threatened an unarmed black man feels when he sees a cop? Can a black man who feels threatened by a white police officer murder him in self-defense? Wouldn’t that equal justice?
Don’t Shoot
Supreme Court gave cops the license to murder Americans
Does this cop look threatened? Supreme Court said he has a right to murder you.
Discrimination within the Courts
No Justice No Peace
Eric Garner
Police shooting by race
Tamir Rice and American Justice
Miriam Carey RIP
We are only a police bullet away from being a hashtag
Murdered by trained and armed cops for carrying a toy gun on a playground and in Walmart
Tamir Rice RIP
Unarmed Deceased Victims of Police Violence, the ones who felt “threatened.”
Military police in Ferguson
Murdered by Police who felt threatened
Murdered by Police who felt threatened
Armed and trained cops felt threatened by a kid so they tasered the kids’s face.
Don’t those cops look threatened? It must be the “Fuck the Police” sign that is threatening.
This article (1) stirs my mind. By itself, it is food for thought about the future of American healthcare and the future of those unable to access advanced technology because of insurance coverage.
In the US healthcare arena, Medicare is the gold standard. Being the largest payer, as well as the Government, Medicare dictates what is covered and what is not.
Commercial insurers either try to meet Medicare standards or exceed them, to compete in providing health coverage to employers.
Access to advanced technology that is changing healthcare, allowing it to be delivered anywhere, is not available to everyone with insurance.
The elderly who are on Medicare have the worst coverage, with most of this advanced technology that is beneficial to them not covered. No coverage means no access. Medicare sets the standard for coverage of healthcare services.
Others who do not benefit from advanced technology that is transforming medicine, moving it to the communities where outcomes are determined, are Black & Brown communities. Impoverished neighborhoods in urban areas.
Only recently did Medicare lift the limitation on telemedicine to include care in patient homes. Still Most Black & Brown communities do not receive such access to telemedicine, where transportation limitations can make doctor office visits a hardship.
The above is an example of structural racism. In addition, Black & Brown community hospitals are under-staffed and the staff poorly screened. As well as not offering many technologies available in rural hospitals, such as telemedicine in the home. Other limitations include Black & Brown communities still lacking smart phones, which could deliver such services.
[ What is the penetration rate of smart phones in Black communities? Anyone know?]
Doctors are leaving impoverished, homeless, mentally ill and Black & Brown communities behind. Without access to immediate life saving measures these communities are dying off. Infant mortality rates for Black women, despite income, are similar to that of a developing nation. Infant mortality is a standard indicator of health.
We need doctors to advocate policies that benefit patients and not drug and medical device companies. Doctors also need to stop letting insurance companies dictate patient care.
Darren Rainey, 50, died while incarcerated a the Dade Correctional Institution. He was serving a 2-year sentence for a victimless crime; possession of cocaine. At the time of his death, he had only one month to go before his release.
Prison guards forced him to stand in a tiny shower stall while being blasted by scalding hot water until his skin began to shrivel away from his body and he died. Fellow inmates say he begged for his life before collapsing in the shower.
The Florida’s Department of Corrections often comes up with cruel and imaginative punishments for prisoners — allegedly ranging from starvation diets to forcing prisoners to fight so the guards could place bets.
Former employees of Dade Correctional Institution in Homestead say mentally ill are being abused and mistreated. (Photo by Lonny Paul)
The Florida Department of Corrections did not do an investigation because no autopsy was done at the time of Darren Rainey’s murder. What about the witnesses?
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Florida: Black Male Boiled to Death by Prison Guards No Autopsy NO CHARGES
This man was mentally ill. He was not a criminal and did not deserve to die in this manner.
Simply outrageous in light of increasing publicity of police brutality and profit schemes around private prisons involving the judicial system, and still no justice. Racial profiling schemes built around the war on drugs, broken windows, etc. intentionally target people of color, the homeless and the mentally ill.
Darren Rainey was the perfect target. A Bullseye written all over him by a corrupt justice system that labelled and condemned him to this fate. A fate that saw him tortured and murdered by prison guards without remorse or respect for a human being.
An oppressive air of slavery reside at Dade Correctional where innates are at the cruelty of the masters aka prison guards. The article makes clear this correctional facility is notorious for its torture yet Florida decided no investigation necessary.
What treatments did he receive for his mental illness?
Almost two years at Dade Correctional Institution in Florida, where it appeared Darren Rainey was abused, tortured and humiliated regularly by prison guards. His crime a victimless one where he allegedly was in possession of small amounts of cocaine. Given the history of police violence and lying, one should question the veracity of the charges.
Simply put: Police officers LIE!
In addition, one should consider his mental diagnosis? What treatment did he receive?
How can scalding someone with boiling water rehabilitate?
What Deterrents Are In Place to Prevent Abuse by Prison Guards?
There is the constitution, and they are laws; however there is no one to enforce them as the enforcers are the perpetrators.
Is it time to consider corporal punishment for those who do harm when hired to do otherwise?
Prison guards should be given the death penalty. Instead, they faced no charges and their freedom never in jeopardy, unlike Darren Rainey, who murdered no one.
Murders without consequences with paid time off, is a system of that rewards and perpetuates cruelty. Those prison guards are now more feared than ever and more abusive. But as long as their abuse is confined to the prison, society ignores. However, that is never the case, and we will never know because we never set systems in place to check.
A murderer is a murderer even in uniform, and that person remains dangerous despite our justification and ignorance. The home environment and neighborhoods of prison guards who inflict cruel and unusual punishment disproportionately should be surveilled for other acts of cruel and unusual punishments.
Florida has come to symbolize: Discrimination and Structural Racism in America
The prison guards locked Darren Rainey in a tiny shower then turned on boiling water at full blast on this older man’s naked body while he begged for them to stop. He was found dead 1-2 hours later with scalding water still blasting.
Eventually, we become what we tolerate. How long will Americans tolerate these targeted injustices? Florida now has its own system of justice that erodes access to justice by blacks. Clearly, blacks should get the hell out of Florida or stand their ground. There is no justice for black people in Florida ( and elsewhere). With armed white males standing their grounds, survival means sticking together, looking the enemy in the eyes and by all means fight THE ENEMY but never each other.
Conclusion
This case highlights the greed of cruelty in privatizing and providing monetary incentives to incarcerate people.
A culture of violence and cruelty is deeply contagious if not contained. An environment filled with people who take pleasure in violence and beast like activities is not healthy nor safe. When these violent people are police officers and prison guards, are innocent citizens safe? Are we paying criminals to create crime for profit?
As a black mother with sons, what should I tell them? Can they dream the impossible dream just like their white friends?
Eyes filled with fear, pain and trauma from the hands of a cold and exploitative culture.
Loud Music Murder Trial: The Jury Speaks Out
White Men Need Guns To Shoot Unarmed Black Boys
Michael Dunn was punished for not finishing the job. Had he killed all the black teenagers, he would be a free man today. Any doubts? I have none.
White Men Need Guns to defend against harmless unarmed black kids. Laws assume young black teenagers are thugs, weapons to be feared. Sighting of a young black male is reason to “stand one’s ground (only if you are white),” and claim self-defense. Laws let murderous grown white men free after killing unarmed black children are degrading the moral fiber of humanity. In addition, such biased and selectively enforced laws display the cowardice of white men.
What are they without their guns?
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Btw, the moral turpitude of some white journalists is appalling as they asked Angela Corey after the verdict, should tax-payers’ money and time be wasted on a re-trial? Why bother retry this one case? No fear there among these white female and male journalists, why? They are privileged to say and do as they wish or so is the belief and the culture.
A black boy’s life is not worth taxpayers’ dollars. This explains why there are so many unsolved black-on-black crimes; no one cares if a black person is murdered, especially by a white person.
What coded messages are being sent to the white community and the world?
The latest verdict from Florida was codified: The court punished Michael Dunn for not killing the other three black victims. Florida is an example of codified structural racism. I am not sure whom the prosecutor worked for—certainly not the victims.
Structural racism institutionalizes stereotypes. In Florida, a young black male is considered a thug and someone to be feared. A fear of young black males–often children–is justification for armed and grown white men to shoot unarmed black children. Who is bothered by this? What are you going to do?
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Another thing is that black witnesses’ testimonies do not carry the same weight as those of white murderers whose criminal histories are usually littered with hate crimes–important evidence that is never admissible in court. Why? Conversely, a dead child’s history can be used out of context to label with code words, thereby, feeding into the stereotypes of white emotional biases. It worked well with Trayvon Martin as it did with Jordan Davis. See the pattern?
Why blame dead victims? Why do we believe men who are murderers? In Florida, a pattern is emerging among white people at the sight of young, unarmed black males. This pattern shows the cowardice of some white males as they use their guns to purposely kill innocent, unarmed black children. Such acts are called cowardice and murder everywhere else except the United States of America. The US, once a defender of human rights, is now an abuser.
This stand-your-ground law, implying a young, unarmed black male is a threat to grown white males, is a utopia for the Ku Klux Klan. Enforcement of such laws achieves similar purposes of selectively murdering or incarcerating black males in the United States. Any doubt – look at our prisons filled with blacks because that is where the white establishments are sending our children.
The hands of justice allow murderers to go free; meanwhile, overlooked are the degradation and dissemination of people of color #POC …with them ….YOU …
To be in harmony, you listen, then feel the connection with the collective universe.
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. – Frederick Douglass #quote
So what are these white men without their guns?
#JusticeforJordanDavis #DunnTrial
Are white men afraid of black men ? They JEALOUS?. Those words give grown white men the legal right to murder unarmed defenseless black kids; majority of black kids are not thugs.
India’s caste system is responsible for many of its problems. The caste systems are ill defined; the end result is a society ruled by structural racism– plain and simple!
Further, there is no need to work under such conditions, risking one’s health and those of family and friends.
The ‘manhole workers’ or ‘shit people’ are ostracized, marginalized by their neighbors and communities. These workers hide their occupation, the odor being hard to conceal. They are working to support their families like everyone else and deserve better conditions. Why is this tolerated? It is the institutionalized component of structural racism.
Food for thought based on the above video:
Twenty-five manhole workers die every month;
Eighty percent of these manhole workers die before age 60;
They are the lowest of the lowest in India’s caste system.
Manhole workers are Outsiders within their own communities; they are shit people and are looked down upon. An example of structural racism packaged differently and concealed in ill-defined caste systems.
