Washington 'Red-Skins' Urged to Change Racist Name & Minstrel Show Logo

/

BleacherReport

Q: What does the NFL, its sponsors, TV networks that broadcast the NFL and team owners, specifically Washington’s Daniel Snyder, have in common with Victoria’s Secret?

A: Nothing, because when the lingerie corporation was accused of racial insensitivity for appropriating American Indian imagery, such as using a Native headdress for a costume piece, they had the decency to apologize and remove the offending pieces from purchase and from broadcast.

When the NFL and team owners such as Snyder are accused of the same, they simply ignore it, holding steadfast that their precious 80-year sports tradition is more important than the impact such minstrelsy has on Native lives, and on non-Native perceptions.

Meanwhile, league and Washington team sponsors, such as Bank of America, and the television networks which broadcast NFL games (NBC, CBS, ESPN and FOX) are happy to continue spreading this racist word and profiting from it.

If the NFL, the owners, the sponsors and NBC, CBS, ESPN and FOX think propagating offensive racial slurs such as “red-skin” is indecent, then they have yet to do anything that would remove the pejorative term from the league.

Q: What does the NFL players union have in common with No Doubt?

A: Nothing, because when the rock band was accused of racial insensitivity for appropriating Native imagery for their “Looking Hot” video, they had the courage to acknowledge that, while their aim was not to be offensive, they would remove the video rather than continue hurting people.

The NFL players have no issue being on a team or playing against a team that employs a derogatory racial signifier for a name. They could boycott playing against a team with a racist name, but they choose not to. They could refuse to wear the team “colors," but they choose not to.

For public figures in this day and age, as detailed below, there is no such thing as tacit acceptance of a racist term, only the endorsement of such. If that’s not the kind of endorsement these players were after when they signed with the NFL, then they have yet to demonstrate otherwise.

This is the 11th week of the same NFL season where the racist term “red-skin” marks the 80th year as a team name. Before the season started, I published an article detailing the history of the team under the segregation practices of its founding owner George Preston Marshall, as well as current owner Synder’s apathy toward Native considerations.

Read More

Yellow Fever Is Killing Africans in Darfur: Sudanese government Denies it Exists

/

AllAfrica

The Darfur conflict and genocide of nine years has been was widely publicized: the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, widespread sexual assaults, and the displacement of millions from their homes to camps with limited humanitarian services and poor security.

But the conflict is nowhere near to an end and the suffering continues. Today, Darfur today is housing the highest number of Internally Displaced Person (IDPs) worldwide facing two major challenges: protection and survival.

The new method of denial that the government is using is yellow fever, despite the fact that it is clearly killing hundreds of citizens. Not only is the government failing to protect and prevent citizens from being killed, but it has also restricted NGOs from moving and from accessing patients to provide them emergency care.

The Sudanese government represented by the Ministry of Health is continuously arguing that there is no yellow fever. But the fact is that people are dying every day in rural Darfur without being accounted for as a result of yellow fever. The sickness epidemic started in Jebel Ahmer--an area 42 Km east of Zalingei, Central Darfur, and then became widespread across all of Darfur. Information is inaccessible at the rural area, as is care, but the disease is able to access remote areas and to kill people.

It has been estimated that over a hundred women, men and children have died and over 400 hundred more affected. It is likely half of them might die as a result of being ignored and a lack of medical services. Neither the government nor NGOs working in health field are making enough preparation to face the disease and save the lives of ordinary citizens in Darfur by at least by vaccinating those who are healthy. The outbreak is particularly virulent in the concentration camps where millions of IDPs are currently living. Yellow Fever is a deadly sickness thereby it requires urgent action to control it from spreading all over, and because of people interacting within the region it can most likely can reach the neighboring counties. Before it kills more, peace and the international community faces a new disaster.

 

Read More

Anonymous Issues Warning to Israel after IDF Threaten to Shut Down Internet

/

Rt.com

An Israeli protester, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. (AFP Photo / David Buimovitch)

The hacktivist group Anonymous is angry at Israel, and not just for launching deadly airstrikes on Gaza. Members say the Israeli government "crossed a line in the sand" when it threatened to sever internet and other telecommunications in Gaza.

In a press statement published online, Anonymous issued a warning to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the Israeli government, ordering them to not shut down the internet in the occupied territories and to cease and desist from their “terror upon the innocent people of Palestine.”

In a tweet, the collective condemned Israel, saying it has broken 65 UN resolutions with no consequences. It then compared the situation to Iraq, which was “invaded, bombed, and destroyed” for breaking two resolutions.

Anonymous’ online statement warned the Israeli government: “Like all the other evil governments that have faced our rage, you will not survive it unscathed.”

The statement then turned into a message of support for the people of Gaza saying that “We will do everything in our power to hinder the evil forces of the IDF arrayed against you.”

"Know that Anonymous stands with you in this fight. We will use all our resources to make certain you stay connected to the internet and remain able to transmit your experiences to the world,” the statement said.

And it seems their words are being matched with actions.

Anonymous has put together a “Gaza Care Package,” which contains instructions in Arabic and English to assist Palestinians in the event that the Israeli government threatens their internet connection.

The package also includes information on evading IDF surveillance, along with first aid information.

The collective encouraged Palestinians to download and share the package with others. Those behind the project have vowed to expand and improve the document in coming days.

“No matter how dark it may seem, no matter how alone and abandoned you may feel – know that tens of thousands of us in Anonymous are with you and working tirelessly around the clock to bring you every aid and assistance that we can,” the statement said.

Members are taking a more direct approach too, by contacting Israeli forces directly.

A tweet from an Anonymous account to an IDF spokesperson warned, “It would be wise of you to expect us.”

Anonymous has already hacked a number of Israeli websites, including advocate-israel.com. Visitors to the page see a scrolling banner which says the site was hacked by the “MexicanH Team.”

A statement on the webpage says, “Stop bombing Gaza. Millions of Israelis and Palestinians are lying awake, exposed and terrified.”

Rockets aim at Tel Aviv as conflict escalates

/

Aljazeera

Tension is rising across the Middle East as Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian group which controls the Gaza Strip, continue to exchange fire amid the worst outbreak of violence since the Israeli assault on the territory nearly four years ago.

As the death toll in Gaza reached 19, three Israelis were killed in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday after a rocket fired from Gaza hit an apartment building.

Israeli sources said two rockets hit the Tel Aviv area - one landed in the sea while another missile landed in an uninhabited area of Israel's commercial centre.

Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, a Mediterranean city that has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War.

Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based Palestinian group, said that it had fired one of the rockets that hit Tel Aviv.

Late on Thursday, Israel began moving troops towards the Gaza Strip and Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, authorised the call-up of 30,000 reservists for a possible ground operations.

At least a dozen lorries carrying tanks and armoured vehicles were seen moving towards the border area, while buses ferried soldiers.

While southern Israeli areas near Gaza have long coped with rocket fire, the attacks on the Tel Aviv area illustrated the significant capabilities that Hamas has developed.

Palestinian fighters had previously hit Rishon Letzion before but never reached Tel Aviv, which is only 70km north of the Gaza Strip.

'Savage aggression'

At least 19 Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and more than 150 others wounded as of Thursday in fighting which began with an aerial attack that killed Ahmad Jabari, the Hamas military commander who was accused by Israel of overseeing attacks against civilians.

Thursday's deadly rocket fire on Kiryat Malachi was claimed by Jabari's group, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in a statement on its website. Jabari's funeral took place in Gaza on Thursday.

"It is important to understand one simple point: there is no moral symmetry between the terrorists in Gaza and Israel," Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, said on Thursday

"They are committing double war crimes," he said. "They fire at Israeli civilians and hide behind Palestinian civilians."

Netanyahu referred to the Israeli attacks on Gaza as "surgical".

Appeals Court Rules Michigan’s Ban on Equal Opportunity Unconstitutional

/

CivilRights.org

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit today in an 8-to-7 ruling found that parts of Michigan’s law banning equal opportunity programs at public colleges and universities are unconstitutional.

The court agreed with proponents that the law, known as Proposal 2, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by presenting an extraordinary burden to minority students. That burden “undermines the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change,” said Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., writing for the majority. “Ensuring a fair political process is nowhere more important than in education.”

The court did not comment on part of the law that deals with government hiring.

“Today’s landmark decision reaffirms the cornerstone principle of our democracy—that the political process must be open to all Americans,” said Mark Rosenbaum, American Civil Liberties Union attorney and University of Michigan professor who argued the case. “It restores the argument that race is not to be disadvantaged when universities seek to enroll a diverse student body. Somewhere Lincoln and Dr. King are smiling.”

Read More

Maine White Party (GOP) Chair: I See Black People

/

Wonkette

Did you know only about 1 percent of Mainers are of the African American variety of American? Did you know that adds up (every little bit counts!) to about 15,000 or so black Mainers? Well Maine GOP chair Charlie Webster apparently did not know that, because, as he told NBC, a whole bunch of black people showed up to vote on Election Day — dozens and dozens of them! — but Charlie Webster and his friends don’t know anyone who’s black! He’s not saying they vote frauded Maine … he is just sayin’.

In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day. Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in town knows anyone who’s black. How did that happen? I don’t know. We’re going to find out….
I’m not politically correct and maybe I shouldn’t have said these voters were black, but anyone who suggests I have a bias toward any race or group, frankly, that’s sleazy.

Yes, “sleazy” was just the word we were looking for. Thanks, Charlie Webster!

In other news, President Barack Osama Bin Laden Obama won the state of Maine by over 100,000 votes, or “15 percent.” Must have been some very industrious black people!

More Racism @ Denny's (which sucks anyway): Some Denny’s restaurants to bill customers 5 percent ‘Obamacare’ surcharge

/

TheGrio

A Florida businessman who owns 40 Denny’s restaurants says he’s going to start tacking on an additional 5 percent charge to customers’ bills as a way to offset the costs of Obamacare.

John Metz is the owner of RREMC Restuarants which operates the Denny’s restaurants, 48 Hurricane Grill & Wings locations, and several Dairy Queen franchises. Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, requires businesses with more than 50 employees to provide an approved health insurance plan for each of them. If they don’t, businesses will be penalized $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 employees.

Metz told the Huffington Post the cost of providing insurance is too high.

“Obviously, I’d love to cover all our employees under that insurance. But to pay $5,000 per employee would cost us $175,000 per restaurant and unfortunately, most of our restaurants don’t make $175,000 a year. I can’t afford it,” he explained.

As a solution, he’s passing the cost off on to customers.

“If I leave the prices the same, but say on the menu that there is a 5 percent surcharge for Obamacare, customers have two choices,” Metz told the Huffington Post. “They can either pay it and tip 15 or 20 percent, or if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server, who is primary beneficiary of Obamacare.”

He added, “Although it may sound terrible that I’m doing this, it’s the only alternative.”

Read More

Deion Sanders Calls Out white reporter for Racist Slander

/

theGrio 

NFL Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders called an unnamed white reporter an “African-American killer” because the reporter had alleged that Sanders’ charter school, Prime Prep Academy, was involved in illegal recruiting of athletes.

theGrio: New charge filed against Deion Sanders

In a radio interview with KRLD-FM 105.3, Sanders responded to allegations that his charter school had engaged in illegal recruiting of both football and basketball players.

He said, “First of all, this all started mainly by a Caucasian reporter from a news station, Channel 8, you know who I’m talking about, and he seems like he’s the African-American killer.”

“It’s always something against a brother. And that bothers me. I’ve never been accused of cheating with anything, in any sports, in any arena, in my life.”

“Now to be accused of something as stupid and as simplistic as this and all I have is 30 kids out there.”

Sanders has threatened to file a lawsuit saying, “We have a lawyer that’s getting ready to tear some butts up, because a lot of the things that were done to our institution was done wrong because you dislike me.”

“Don’t allow your disdain for me affect our kids and that’s what’s happening.”

Read More

Virginia White Party (GOP) official condemns Obama to hell

/

TheGrio

Bob FitzSimmonds, a GOP official from Virginia, became the latest Republican to unleash a post-election rant when he condemned President Barack Obama to hell on his Facebook page.

theGrio: Why the Republicans can’t easily solve their demographic problem

“When Obama is 90 years old and he dies and goes to Hell, he is going to say ‘This is all Bush’s fault,” FitzSimmonds wrote on his page yesterday.

In an email to the Hampton Roads Pilot, FitzSimmonds, the chief deputy clerk of Prince William Circuit Court said he does not see anything wrong with his comments.

He said, “My Facebook post was not about Obama going to Hell. It was about his obsession with blame shifting and I don’t really see anything inappropriate about it.”

The Pilot also reported that Virginia Democratic Party chairman Brian Moran has called on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and state GOP chairman Pat Mullins to repudiate FitzSimmonds’ comments, adding that an apology is in order.

“Mr. Fitzsimmonds should apologize and his close allies like Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins should condemn his inflammatory remarks immediately,” Moran said.

Another Break for White Man George Zimmerman: Prosecutor mistakenly leaks witness names- helps to prepare defense/impeachment for trial

/

OrlandoSentinel 

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges in the Trayvon Martin murder case have gone to great lengths to protect the names of witnesses, fearing they'd be hounded by reporters, curiosity-seekers or worse.

But lead prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda has inadvertently leaked the names of nearly a dozen witnesses, violating a court order.

It's not clear what will happen now and whether he'll face any sort of sanction or punishment from the judge in the case, Debra S. Nelson in Sanford.

De la Rionda delivered a new set of evidence to defense attorneys Nov. 8, and he prepared a summary sheet and delivered it to the Seminole County Courthouse.

Normally, he prepares two sets of summary sheets, one for defense attorneys that includes witness names and other protected information, and a second for the public that goes into the courthouse file. It typically identifies witnesses by number — for example, witness 17.

But on Nov. 8 de la Rionda filed the summary sheet that included witness names in the courthouse file, where anyone is free to look at it.

It lists nearly a dozen new witnesses. None is expected to be a major figure at George Zimmerman's second-degree-murder trial. They include several of his neighbors and two black Sanford community leaders who were at a U.S. Department of Justice meeting several months ago.

Read More

Wal-Mart workers plan Black Friday walkout

/

Citizens for LegitGov

A group of Wal-Mart workers are planning to stage a walkout next week on Black Friday, arguably the biggest holiday shopping day for the world's largest retail store. The walkout builds on an October strike that started at a Wal-Mart in Los Angeles and spread to stores in 12 other cities. On Black Friday, organizations expect 1,000 protests, both at stores and online.

Maybe they can have a White Christmas? Whiney White Party (GOP) Customers File Secession petitions for all 50 states

/

YahooNews

Petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the union have now been filed for all 50 states on the White House website.

The secession petition push began last week on the site's We The People section after a Slidell, La., man filed a petition on Nov. 7 to allow Louisiana to secede. Residents from other states followed suit.

As of Wednesday afternoon, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas—all states that voted for former Gov. Mitt Romney—as well as Florida each had accumulated more than 25,000 signatures, the threshold needed to trigger an official response from the Obama administration. Collectively, the secession petitions now have more than 700,000 digital signatures.

Texas is in the lead with more than 99,000, but Gov. Rick Perry said on Tuesday that he does not support secession.

"Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it," a statement from the governor's office read. "But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government."

Read More

Israel announces Full Scale Gaza Attack on Twitter

/
Image from Twitter/@IDFSpokesperson

Image from Twitter/@IDFSpokesperson

The days of declaring way with a lengthy proclamation signed by a prime minister or president are in the past. Israel announced on Tuesday that it was launching a strike on the Gaza Strip with a single tweet.

A message sent from the official Twitter account for the Israeli Defense Forces’ press department confirmed that the Jewish state has started a new round of action against their adversaries in what is believed to be the first time that a military campaign has been issued through the social media site.

“The IDF has begun a widespread campaign on terror sites & operatives in the #Gaza Strip, chief among them #Hamas & Islamic Jihad targets,” reads the message from the @IDFSpokesperson account. The IDF then confirmed over Twitter that additional strikes had seriously damaged Hamas' long-range missile capabilities and an underground weapons storage facilities.

Read More

Palestinians call on UN Security Council to stop Israeli aggression

/

PressTv

The Palestinian Authority (PA) calls on the United Nations Security Council to take action against Israel, which has launched a deadly offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, and stop its aggression against Palestinians.

 

On Wednesday, the Israeli military launched a series of new air and sea attacks, dubbed as Operation Pillar of Cloud, against the Palestinians of the coastal territory. The offensive left at least ten Palestinians dead, including senior Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jabari, the head of Izzeddin Qassam Brigades. 

 

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority ambassador to the UN, said the Israeli offensive amounted to "illegal criminal actions."  

In a letter to Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, the president of the Security Council this month, Mansour said that a "message must be sent to Israel to cease its military campaign against the Palestinian people under its occupation, including the cessation of extrajudicial killing." 

 

"This escalation, which continues at this moment, demands the attention of the international community, including the Security Council, with the aim of averting the further deterioration and destabilization of the situation on the ground and the fueling by Israel of yet another deadly cycle of violence and bloodshed," the Palestinian Authority envoy added. 

Read More

Death toll rises in Gaza fighting

/

Aljazeera

Israel has exchanged fire with armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip after assassinating the military cheief of Hamas, which controls the territory. 

The death toll on Thursday was at least 11 Palestinians killed from Israeli strikes on Gaza, while Israeli media are reporting that three Israelis have been killed in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malahi. 

Launched on Wednesday during a deceptive lull in almost a week of surging cross-border violence, Israel's began its air assault with the assassination of Ahmed al-Jaabari, head of Hamas' military wing, while travelling in his car. Jaabari's son was also killed in the strike.

Hamas, reeling at the strategic loss of its top military commander, Islamic Jihad and other armed factions said they resumed rocket attacks against towns and villages in Israel's south after Wednesday's assassinatuion.  

Israeli authorities said more than 200 rockets and mortars were fired in from Gaza as of Thursday morning, and its Iron Dome interceptor had shot down 27 of the missiles.

On either side of the frontier, people fled streets for cover.

Expecting days or more of fighting, Israel warned Hamas all its men were in its sights and weathered censure from
influential Arab countries with the Arab League announcing it was to hold an emergency meeting on Saturday and Egypt recalling its ambassador to Israel.

The United States condemned Hamas, shunned by the West as an obstacle to peace.

Any Need for Voting Rights Act Still? White Party (GOP) Definitely Not Committed to White Supremacy/Survival/Suppression of Non-Whites

/

NY Times 

DOES the re-election of the first black president mean the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unnecessary and perhaps unconstitutional? The Supreme Court’s decision last week to consider a constitutional challenge to a key section of the act suggests that a perverse outcome of the 2012 campaign may be that President Obama’s victory spells doom for the civil rights law most responsible for African-American enfranchisement.

The central question in the constitutional debate is whether times have changed enough in the nearly five decades since the act’s passage to suggest that the law has outlived its usefulness. The unprecedented flexing of racial minorities’ political muscle on Nov. 6 does make it clear how much times have changed. But a campaign marred by charges of voter suppression and Election Day mishaps also makes the need for federal protection of voting rights clearer than ever.

The case before the court, coming out of Shelby County, Ala., concerns Section 5 of the act, which requires some states and jurisdictions (mostly in the South) to seek permission from the federal government before they can implement any law related to voting. If a voter-ID law, redistricting plan or other election law is seen as worsening the position of racial minorities, then the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington will not allow the voting change to go into effect. Earlier this year, for example, a federal court struck down Texas’s recently enacted voter-ID law and Congressional redistricting plan on that basis.

Read More

Another Unsatisfied White Party (GOP) Customer has Racial Temper Tantrum - White Man Draws Large Penis in Chalk Outside Black Man's House

/

Patch.com

A man reported someone drew a large penis with chalk, on an outside wall of his home. He washed away the “artwork,” but believed the incident was due to him being Muslim and people assumed he voted for President Obama. The incident occurred on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 8:18 a.m. at the 27900 block of Hedgeline Drive.

Want Some Corn from Super Beard's Beard? Cornel West Fighting For Poverty Or Ego and/or Suffering from HNIC Syndrome?

/

NewsOne

Cornel West Obama
Cornel West (pictured) didn’t join in on the nationwide wobble over the re-election of President Barack Obama. The academic and political activist has harshly criticized the President consistently over the last few years and didn’t shy away from any of those criticisms in a new interview with Democracy Now. Joined by his brother in Obama bashing Tavis Smiley, Dr. West’s coined up a new diss for Obama, dismissing him as a “Rockefeller Republican in Blackface.”

Dr. West explained:

I think that it’s morally obscene and spiritually profane to spend $6 billion on an election, $2 billion on a presidential election, and not have any serious discussion—poverty, trade unions being pushed against the wall dealing with stagnating and declining wages when profits are still up and the 1 percent are doing very well, no talk about drones dropping bombs on innocent people.

So we end up with such a narrow, truncated political discourse, as the major problems—ecological catastrophe, climate change, global warming. So it’s very sad. I mean, I’m glad there was not a right-wing takeover, but we end up with a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface, with Barack Obama, so that our struggle with regard to poverty intensifies.

Read More

Oklahoma Approves Ballot Question Banning Affirmative Action

/

CivilRights.org

On Election Day, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 759, banning affirmative action measures in state government hiring, public contracting, and higher education. The measure passed by a vote of 59 to 41 percent and amends the state constitution to prohibit any consideration of race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin by the state government. 

Equal opportunity initiatives expand access to educational and professional opportunities for qualified minorities, women, and members of other underrepresented communities. Oklahoma’s State Question 759 was pushed by Ward Connerly, a California businessman and former University of California regent, who has long opposed equal opportunity initiatives. He has been the primary force behind similar measures that have passed in California, Arizona, Nebraska, Washington, and Michigan.

Connerly attempted to get an anti-equal opportunity question on the ballot in Oklahoma in 2008, but withdrew it after it was revealed he and supporters used voter fraud and other deceptive practices to collect signatures in support of their initiatives. Following that defeat, the state’s Republican legislature passed a bill last year that sent the proposal directly to the 2012 ballot.

Noam Chomsky on Gaza, and the 2 Positives of Election 2012: The Worst Didn't Happen -- and It's Over

/

DemocracyNow

World-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT professor Noam Chomsky joins us to discuss his recent trip to the Gaza Strip, where he publicly called on Israel to put an end to the blockade on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave. "[Gaza] is a lesson for people from the West," Chomsky says. "If they can struggle on under really harsh and brutal conditions, [it] tells us we ought to be doing a lot more." Chomsky also comments on President Obama’s re-election, saying: "There are two good things about it. One is, the worst didn’t happen, and it might have. The second is, it’s over. So we can put it behind us and get back to work."