September 19, 2013

Prison-Industrial Complex Watch: End Mandatory Minimum Sentences For Non-Violent Drug Offenses

It’s time for Americans to pay attention to what we are doing to so many non-violent drug offenders. We put them in jail, take away their right to vote when they get out, in many cases for minor offenses, that probably shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Americans need to see the forest for the trees when it comes to U.S. drug laws. Why is it so hard to change failed policy?

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July 27, 2013

Bill Maher: Bill O’Reilly, Republicans, Don’t Hear What Obama Says

On Friday’s Real Time on HBO, host Bill Maher compared President Obama’s statement on African-American men and crime with Bill O’Reilly’s statement about statistical evidence on blacks and homicide. One Friday earlier, President Obama said, “Now, this isn’t to say that the African-American community is naive about the fact that African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system.” Obama said this during his much talked about and unscripted remarks on Trayvon Martin, the Zimmerman not-guilty verdict, and race relations in America.

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July 22, 2013

Racializing Black-On-Black Crime, A Means To Demonize African-Americans

To listen to many on the Right, we are never to include a racial component in any crime until we eradicate so-called “black-on-black” crime. Conservatives believe the liberal media should not focus on a black victim, portrayed by conservative media as the guilty party, and should instead focus its attention on inner-city black-on-black crime. According to conservative media, we aren’t talking about blacks killing other blacks enough. Until we meet our quota in reporting blacks being murdered by other blacks, we are not allowed to talk about any other crime and the potential that race may have played a role.

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July 20, 2013

When A Case Against Liberal Media Portrayal Of Racism Goes Horribly Wrong

It is certainly possible to build a solid case that reveals a “jump-to-conclusion” style of reporting when it comes to stories about racism from the so-called liberal media. But Ann Coulter’s piece titled (“To Avoid Looking Like a Criminal, Don’t Commit a Crime“) is not one. We know the news media (less so for local news, more so for newspapers and cable news networks) is quick to add racism into the mix in a white on black crime or a black on white crime. The history of this country shows there’s good reason for suspicion of racism, and it makes for more readers or more viewers, so the mainstream media can’t help itself. So yes, a case could be made that racism is invoked more than can be proven.

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July 7, 2013

College Admission When You’re White, Privileged And Righteous

Books - photo by ChrisRecently the Supreme Court punted on an affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, sending the case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Abigail Fisher, a white woman, applied to the school in 2008 when she was a high school senior. She was rejected, and because, well, she’s white and the school is not color blind, according to Fisher, that means her rejection was discriminatory. You know, there’s a lot of that going around these days. People born into white privilege are increasingly screwed in today’s America. They don’t stand a chance!

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