Mumia Abu-Jamal on the meaning of Ferguson

In a new collection of over 100 previously unpublished essays, many written in solitary confinement, Mumia Abu-Jamal addresses topics ranging from Rosa Parks to Edward Snowden, from the Trail of Tears to Ferguson. Click here to order Writing on the Wall today! The following excerpt from Writing on the Wall was written on August 31, 2014, by Mumia Abu-Jamal. He spent more than 30 years awaiting execution, before his death sentence – but not his conviction – was vacated in 2011. Abu-Jamal is currently incarcerated and infirm in Mahanoy prison in Pennsylvania. You can contribute online to pay for a…

“Racial Profiling” bei der Bundespolizei

Das Vorgehen der Polizei, aufgrund ethnischer Merkmale unterschiedliche Maßstäbe anzusetzen, hat in den USA zu heftigen Ausschreitungen geführt. Rassismus ist aber offenbar auch bei der Bundespolizei verbreitet. Derzeit laufen in Deutschland zehn Verfahren wegen “Racial Profiling”. Manche sprechen von der “Spitze des Eisbergs”. Deutschland wurde deswegen bereits wiederholt vom Europarat und von den Vereinten Nationen abgemahnt. http://info.arte.tv/de/racial-profiling-bei-der-bundespolizei

Charleston isn’t really about gun control. It’s about racial violence.

The debate about guns ignores the major crisis we’re facing. It’s been just a day since a gunman burst into the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., killing nine. But already, the media is abuzz with its usual response to mass shootings. On the one hand, pro-gun proponents bemoaned “pistol-free zones” like churches, where guns aren’t allowed. If the victims had been armed, they argue, this violence could have been prevented. Gun control advocates, on the other hand, lamented that easy access to guns emboldened criminals to carry out “unthinkable” crimes. Even President Obama linked the shooting to gun violence,…

The Counted: People killed by police in the US

-People killed by police in the United States of America till 19 June 2015. A very good and useful docomentation showing a wide range of parametres such as, race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, state and many more. About the project- Admin What is The Counted? The Counted is a project by the Guardian – and you – working to count the number of people killed by police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States throughout 2015, to monitor their demographics and to tell the stories of how they died. The database will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced…

Police use of lethal violence in the United States—as powerfully documented by the Guardian and the Washington Post

“Bernard Harcourt, who wrote influential books and authored studies debunking the famous Broken Windows theory of policing (the debated idea that focusing on low-level “urban disorder” will curtail serious crime), recently pointed out (Guardian, 6/6/15) that the “crime wave” politics being carried by right-wing and corporate centrist media outlets are a classic response to a political movement that takes on racist policing in America: The point of the “Ferguson effect,” though, is not to be accurate. It is instead to distract us from the growing evidence about the magnitude and extent of police use of lethal violence in the United States—as…