DarkStar Spouts Off

Black Perception Of Police Is Based On Experience

"The only real conclusion to draw: Black people are more mistrustful of police not because black people are more likely to commit crimes, or because black people are less interested in law and order, or because of some other cultural issue, but because, quite simply, black people are much more likely to have been victimized by the police — and they’re much more likely to know others like them who have been victimized as well."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/12/20/study-shows-deep-racial-division-when-it-comes-to-attitudes-about-cops-but-its-driven-by-experience/?postshare=7941482266680312&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.3e52c9dd061f

Black Republicans, I Need To Know How You Stand By The GOP

How do Black Republicans continue to stand by the Republican party, when the recent ruling in North Carolina, to strike down the voting regulations changes, shows that the current Republican party, is ACTIVELY working to deny Black voters their right to vote?

How does this square with the history of the Republican party as the party founded to end slavery in the United States?

I really don't understand.

Black Republicans, I Need To Know How You Stand By The GOP

How do Black Republicans continue to stand by the Republican party, when the recent ruling in North Carolina, to strike down the voting regulations changes, shows that the current Republican party, is ACTIVELY working to deny Black voters their right to vote?

How does this square with the history of the Republican party as the party founded to end slavery in the United States?

I really don't understand.

What Blacks Say About Black On Black Violence

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-black-americans-say-about-black-on-black-gun-violence/

<em>
Last month, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Urban Institute, and the Joyce Foundation released Engaging Communities in Reducing Gun Violence: A Road Map for Safer Communities. Our research debunked the notion that African Americans are less attentive to the problem of gun violence than police violence.In compiling this report, we brought together and listened to residents of communities hard-hit by gun violence—faith leaders, formerly incarcerated individuals, law enforcement, elected officials, social service providers, community activists, and others. Most of the participants were black or Latino—people like Fathers & Families of San Joaquin Executive Director Sammy Nunez; Petersburg, Virginia, Police Chief John Dixon; and Wanda Montgomery of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. Others were members of our steering committee and have devoted their careers to building safer communities—people like Gary, Indiana, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; Rev. Michael McBride of PICO National Network; and Kayla Hicks of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. We then tested the ideas that emerged against a nationwide survey of 600 African Americans and 600 Latinos conducted by Benenson Strategy Group (BSG) and Ron Lester and Associates.While about half of African Americans we surveyed nationally described police brutality (54 percent) and police misconduct (50 percent) in America as extremely serious problems, 80 percent of African Americans described gun violence in America as an extremely serious problem. Indeed, rather than discounting gun violence or seeing it in a silo isolated from police violence, many African Americans see the problems as interconnected. For example, 61 percent of African Americans agreed with the statement that “fewer guns on the streets would improve the relationship between the police and the communities they serve.”Similarly, the communities with which we met thought improving police-community relationships was a key factor in reducing gun violence. Distrust that stems from arbitrary stops and discriminatory enforcement makes residents less willing to work with police, and makes communities less safe.Solutions put forth by community members were supported by the survey research. Over 90 percent of African Americans and Latinos supported strengthening police accountability through civilian review boards, body-worn cameras, and racial bias assessment and training of police (including new recruits). Over 76 percent of both groups support prioritizing enforcement on higher-level gun violence offenders rather than lower-level “broken windows” offenders.Community members also emphasized other solutions that address structural factors that underlie gun violence.</em>More at the link provided.

What Black Americans Say About 'Black-on-Black' Gun Violence

http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/06/02/what-black-americans-say-about-black-black-gun-violence

Last month, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Urban Institute, and the Joyce Foundation released Engaging Communities in Reducing Gun Violence: A Road Map for Safer Communities. Our research debunked the notion that African Americans are less attentive to the problem of gun violence than police violence.

In compiling this report, we brought together and listened to residents of communities hard-hit by gun violence—faith leaders, formerly incarcerated individuals, law enforcement, elected officials, social service providers, community activists, and others. Most of the participants were black or Latino—people like Fathers & Families of San Joaquin Executive Director Sammy Nunez; Petersburg, Virginia, Police Chief John Dixon; and Wanda Montgomery of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. Others were members of our steering committee and have devoted their careers to building safer communities—people like Gary, Indiana, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; Rev. Michael McBride of PICO National Network; and Kayla Hicks of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. We then tested the ideas that emerged against a nationwide survey of 600 African Americans and 600 Latinos conducted by Benenson Strategy Group (BSG) and Ron Lester and Associates.

While about half of African Americans we surveyed nationally described police brutality (54 percent) and police misconduct (50 percent) in America as extremely serious problems, 80 percent of African Americans described gun violence in America as an extremely serious problem. Indeed, rather than discounting gun violence or seeing it in a silo isolated from police violence, many African Americans see the problems as interconnected. For example, 61 percent of African Americans agreed with the statement that “fewer guns on the streets would improve the relationship between the police and the communities they serve.”

Similarly, the communities with which we met thought improving police-community relationships was a key factor in reducing gun violence. Distrust that stems from arbitrary stops and discriminatory enforcement makes residents less willing to work with police, and makes communities less safe.

Solutions put forth by community members were supported by the survey research. Over 90 percent of African Americans and Latinos supported strengthening police accountability through civilian review boards, body-worn cameras, and racial bias assessment and training of police (including new recruits). Over 76 percent of both groups support prioritizing enforcement on higher-level gun violence offenders rather than lower-level “broken windows” offenders.

Community members also emphasized other solutions that address structural factors that underlie gun violence.

#FlintWaterCrisis: The Filters Were A Feel Good Excercise

This was good, but was it effective?

Due to the inaction of state and federal officials, thousands of people in Flint have been exposed to unsafe levels of lead in their water. Now a group of union plumber are taking matters into their own hands.

On Saturday, 300 plumbers from unions across the country descended on Flint to install new faucets and water filters for free.

Many Flint residents needed new faucets because their existing faucets were so old they could not accommodate water filters provided by the state.

The effort was coordinated by the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, known as the United Association. The fixtures were donated by the Plumbing Manufacturers International.

Now, read this:

"Just heard one of the toughest stories I've heard in my life. Nakeyja, a resident of Flint, showed me how the government issued filter does not work. She tested it in front me and it was at 184 ppb. It's suppose to be less than 15. Her 1-year-old daughter is having seizures and tested very high for lead poisoning. And her 3-year-old son is not speaking and is staring at one location for long periods of time. She is testing him this week, but he is not doing well. We have poisoned our own people. Our children. American children. And there is no cure for lead poisoning. Russell and I were brought to tears. And we are hearing this at every house we visit. Beyond belief."

Clearly, people are being given Band-Aids for gunshot wounds in Flint. Babies are having seizures and testing positive for lead poisoning.

The filters are not working. The filters are not working. The filters are not working.

Look up Love Canal.

 

The RNC's Continued Disdain for Blacks

Jackson <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 5:26 AM
Subject: The RNC's Continued Disdain for Blacks
To: Raynard Jackson <[email protected]>

The RNC’s Continued Disdain for Blacks

February 1, 2016

By Raynard Jackson

Columnist

Once again the Republican National Committee (RNC) has demonstrated why
they can’t get more Blacks involved in the party.

In all fairness, party chairman, Reince Priebus has tried to do the right
thing, but his staff has been a total disaster with executing his vision.

Four years ago I created the inaugural Black Republican Trailblazer Awards
Luncheon. The purpose was to use the occasion of Black History Month
(February) to honor Black Republicans who had made significant
contributions to the Black community, the Republican Party, and America
(people like Bill Coleman and Bob Brown).

Priebus insisted on covering the costs of putting the luncheon on but I was
totally responsible for the content, the honorees, and the keynote speaker.

The inaugural year was by far the high water mark of the event simply
because I had total control of the event. The second year was ok and the
third year was a total disaster.

The second year I attempted to work with the staff of the RNC and the whole
program got so watered down that it became unrecognizable.

The third year the staff, through deception and subterfuge, excluded me
from any involvement and it turned into a minstrel show; it was a total
embarrassment.

I fault the RNC’S leadership for creating an environment where this type of
chicanery was allowed to go unpunished.

In December of last year, I notified the RNC and its leadership that
because of their total incompetence, I was taking full control of my event
and that I would cover all the costs. I also informed them that I had
trademarked the name “Black Republican Trailblazer Awards Luncheon.”

So, needless to say, I was quite stunned when the RNC decided to infringe
upon my trademark by planning their own Black Republican Trailblazer Awards
Luncheon for this week (a week before my event).

I began to receive calls and emails from across the country because
everyone knew my event was in DC, but yet they were getting an invitation
about an event in Florida. This was done intentionally to cause confusion
among my supporters. This was just another feeble attempt by the RNC and
its staff to sabotage another one of my initiatives.

Sean Spicer, head of the RNC’s communications department, did everything in
his power to sabotage the inaugural event. I was told that there would be
no media at the actual luncheon, but rather there would be a media avail at
the RNC after the event.

Spicer unilaterally changed his mind and had all the major white media
covering the event (CNN, Roll Call, etc.), while the Black media was
literally waiting in the lobby of the RNC headquarters. Can you say
separate and unequal?

Now let me introduce you to a few more of the saboteurs.

Krystal Quarker, the current leader of this continued effort to sabotage my
activities, was introduced to me three years ago when she was unemployed
and desperate for work. I help her get her job at the RNC and this is her
way of showing me thanks.

Tara Wall, who never met a person she couldn’t alienate, needed a job so I
helped her get a consultant contract with the RNC. She then wanted to
become a full time staffer, so I helped her with that. So, once she got
her consultant contract her attitude towards me was “why do I need to talk
to Raynard?” Despite that, I still helped her become a staffer and her
attitude towards me got even worse. This was a person who never missed an
opportunity to denigrate the 200 Black newspapers in the U.S. According to
her, “no one reads Black newspapers anyway.” She said this to all the top
people in the RNC.

Orlando Watson is totally in over his head. He is extremely arrogant and
has absolutely no connection to Black media or the Black community. He is
the butt of jokes within the media and he is too stupid to even realize it.
He constantly leaked to Sen. Rand Paul’s staff sensitive RNC communications
in hopes of ingratiating himself with team Paul; he wanted to work on
Paul’s eventual presidential campaign and he thought sharing information
with them would guarantee him a job. What he didn’t realize was that they
thought he was a joke and there was never any intention of hiring him for
the presidential campaign.

Last and certainly not the least, is C.J. Jordan. She was a spy within the
RNC for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP). She would send them sensitive internal communications from the
party so they would know what deliberations were going on inside the
organization.

For three years I had complained to leadership about the incompetence and
disloyalty going on within the building, but nothing was ever done. These
staffers should have all been fired immediately for their lack of
professionalism and incompetence. But one thing I have learned about
Republicans, they love Blacks who have no spine or backbone; they want
Blacks that they are comfortable with versus those who are good at what
they do.

The easy thing for me to do would be to leave the Republican Party; but
that’s not an option. I will not allow anyone or any circumstance to get
me to leave my party; but rather I will fight to make my party better.

As recently as two weeks ago, I told the leadership of the RNC that their
staff was calling reporters begging them to create a hit piece on me in
their feeble attempt to tarnish my reputation; and as usual, nothing was
been done.

So, to my followers and supporters, when you begin to hear “anonymous”
quotes about how I am such a bad person, please know where it is coming
from.

I foolishly allowed the leadership of the RNC to use me and then discard me.
I was warned by both Black and White party officials that this would happen
to me; but I was blinded by my party loyalty in my foolish belief that they
were finally serious about the Black community.

I will continue to work with our congressional leadership and candidates
who are serious about having a meaningful relationship with the Black
community.

But, I cannot and will not have any involvement with a national committee
that has so little regard for me personally and the Black community at
large that they would not only infringe upon my intellectual property
rights; but also try to emulate my idea by prostituting it with their
incompetence.

I am in the process of seeking legal counsel to explore what my options are.

If the RNC and its leaders want a fight, a fight they shall get. The game
is now enjoined!

Freddie Gray Should Not Have A Recreation Center Named After Him #FreddieGray #BaltimoreRiots

Jamal Bryant and his church, donated a building, which was a church building, and turned it into a recreation center. That is something that needs to happen. But, this past weekend in Baltimore, it was opened and named after Freddie Gray.

Freddie Gray should not have died as a result of being arrested, but Freddie Gray was a drug dealer.
It has been said that Rosa Parks was not the first Black woman to be arrested for riding in the front of the bus. There was another woman, but she was an unmarried and never married single mother, and the civil rights leadership decided not to back her because she was not viewed as being the perfect person to back, based on her background.

Today, we have come to this.

Jamal Bryant, Take Several Seats

Evidently, Jamal Bryant is being called the leader of a protest that happened this morning, in Baltimore, that closed entrance/exit ramp to/from I-95 and I-395. He said it was done as a protest against funding of a juvenile prison while "not funding" schools.

One more time in case you missed it.

Gov. Hogan has increased school funding. What didn't get funded was the OPTIONAL geographic based school funding. Bryant is whining about this, but I think he was silent when, for years, O'Malley didn't provide that same funding,

Here's more on the juvenile prison funding. GUESS WHO PUT THAT IN PLACE, ORIGINALLY?

Yes. Martin O'Malley!

I'm saying it right now. Jamal Bryant is just trying to get media face time.

Period.

"What Isis Wants"

This has to be the most important reading material, this year.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways. First, we tend to see jihadism as monolithic, and to apply the logic of al‑Qaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it. The Islamic State supporters I spoke with still refer to Osama bin Laden as “Sheikh Osama,” a title of honor. But jihadism has evolved since al-Qaeda’s heyday, from about 1998 to 2003, and many jihadists disdain the group’s priorities and current leadership.

Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)

We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first book Holy War, Inc. in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohammad Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.

The Daily Show Is Satire On The COMEDY CHANNEL!!!!!

To me, the best satire is one that takes a look at some event, and then builds off of that event in a way that is plausible, and then just goes over the top in some way. It could be taking the event and extending it to the extreme or it can be an explanation that starts in truth and then ends in the absurd.

I tend to like irony so if irony is involved, I think the satire is likely to be successful.

To me, that was the goodness of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

If anyone went to that show to get "news", then they are the one's who have the problem. How can you go to...
... wait for it....
.... wait foooooorrrrrrrrrr itttttttt......
The Comedy Channel for news!?!?!?!?!?

Anyone who claims Jon Stewart was anyway dishonest in "presenting news," is part of the joke and shows the brilliance of the show. They have been P*WNED!

Iggy Azalea Haters, Take Several Back Seats!

I don't know Iggy Azalea from the reptile -- wait for it ‪#‎DryHumor‬ -- but I think her critics need to close their mouths, sit down, and take the back seat.

Rap went WORLD WIIIIIIIIDDDDDDEEEEEEE and when you have "the children" of the original hip hop and rap, producing the GAR-BAGHE, they are producing, now, what do you expect?

So I'm sorry -- ‪#‎NotSorry‬ -- but everyone saying "cultural appropriation!" can forget that. I'm not claiming that trash called rap today as part of My Black History and Black culture!

When It Comes To Government

*NOTHING* it provides is for free. NOTHING.

Things Many Public Conservatives, Including Black, Don't Want You To Know

I'm tired. So, here are some things that many public conservatives, including public Black conservatives, do not want you to know:

• Blacks don't consider Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, Sr., to be leaders:
  

  8. Which of the following speaks for you most often?

  Person	Percent (%)
  Reverend Al Sharpton,National Action Network	24
  Reverend Jesse Jackson, Rainbow PUSH Coalition	11
  Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D‐CA)	9
  Benjamin Jealous, President&CEO,NAACP	8
  AssistantDemocratic Leader, Congressman James E. Clyburn (D‐SC)	5
  MarcH. Morial, President & CEO, National Urban League	2
  Michael Steele,former Chairman ofthe Republican National Committee	2
  None of the above	40

• A quote from Tim Scott
  

  And unlike other, more prominent black Republicans — Herman Cain or Ben Carson, for example — Scott isn’t likely to accuse black voters of being enslaved to the Democratic Party.

  “That language doesn’t suit me,” Scott says. “It’s really hard to offend someone into changing their minds.”

• Black business creation 2009:
  

  African-Americans and older Americans experience greatest increases in business-creation rates from 2008 to 2009

  ...

  Entrepreneurship rates by race show that African-Americans experienced the largest increase in entrepreneurial activity between 2008 and 2009. Rising from 0.22 percent in 2008 to 0.27 percent in 2009, the rate was the highest over the 14 years of reported data but remains below other racial groups. In contrast, both Latinos and Asians experienced declines in entrepreneurial activity rates.

•  

  Poor Blacks get LESS of the government benefits:
  Another finding of the study is that the distribution of benefits no longer aligns with the demography of poverty. African-Americans, who make up 22 percent of the poor, receive 14 percent of government benefits, close to their 12 percent population share.
• Black college degree vs. white college degree attainment:
  
• The out of wedlock birth rate for Black women is falling:
  Among unmarried black women, the birth rate dropped 11 percent between 2007 and 2012, to 63 of every 1,000 live births.
  
  

Al Sharpton and Black On Black Violence

*Sigh*

I'm not defending Al Sharpton, but read this:

The Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for a high-profile community summit to address black-on-black violence after Harlem was rocked by a wave of shootings over Memorial Day.

"Last year alone, nearly one black child a day under the age of 17 was shot and killed in New York City. Shot mostly by other black city residents," Sharpton said.

"Shootings and violence within our community by one of our own is an outrage and an issue that we must confront as diligently and as passionately as a sensational case of police misconduct or brutality."

If I can do a simple Google search and find this in the first 5 links...