Saturday, June 29, 2013

Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960s

Voting Test 1
Test2
Test3
This week’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder overturned Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which mandated federal oversight of changes in voting procedure in jurisdictions that have a history of using a “test or device” to impede enfranchisement. Here is one example of such a test, used in Louisiana in 1964.
After the end of the Civil War, would-be black voters in the South faced an array of disproportionate barriers to enfranchisement. The literacy test—supposedly applicable to both white and black prospective voters who couldn’t prove a certain level of education but in actuality disproportionately administered to black voters—was a classic example of one of these barriers.
The website of the Civil Rights Movement Veterans, which collects materials related to civil rights, hosts a few samples of actual literacy tests used in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s.
In many cases, people working within the movement collected these in order to use them in voter education, which is how we ended up with this documentary evidence. Update: This test—a word-processed transcript of an original—was added by Jeff Schwartz, who worked with the Congress of Racial Equality in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, in the summer of 1964. Schwartz wrote about his encounters with the test in this blog post.
Most of the tests collected here are a battery of trivia questions related to civic procedure and citizenship. (Two from the Alabama test: “Name the attorney general of the United States” and “Can you be imprisoned, under Alabama law, for a debt?”)
But this Louisiana “literacy” test, singular among its fellows, has nothing to do with citizenship. Designed to put the applicant through mental contortions, the test's questions are often confusingly worded. If some of them seem unanswerable, that effect was intentional. The (white) registrar would be the ultimate judge of whether an answer was correct.
Try this one: “Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line (original type smaller and first line ended at comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write.”  
Or this: “Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here.”
There was little room for befuddlement. The test was to be taken in 10 minutes flat, and a single wrong answer meant a failing grade.

Brown eyes and blue eyes Racism experiment (Children Session) - Jane Elliott 1970(ABC)






THREE* KEY POINTS FOR EFFECTIVE RACIAL DIALOGUE:

#1: Racism and racial discrimination continues to put people
of color at a significant disadvantage.

It's THE...important starting point for any HONEST dialogue. 

We have to understand the way things actual are, rather than the way we'd like them to be. 

Historically and still today...the evidence is overwhelming...A huge nationwide study of 10s of 1000s of companies estimates conservatively that 1/3rd of the time, when people of color are out on a job search, they are the victims of discrimination. That effects about a million to 1.2 million people of color a year. That's not a minor consideration. 

So, if we're gonna to have a talking about housing, or employment, or education, or wealth, or the criminal justice system, we have to start with the reality that the disparities are real, and that in part, they are significantly caused by racial discrimination — that's the starting point.

...The biggest problem that we have to get over is "white denial," though, and I say that as someone who has studied that for a long time. Even in the early 60s, BEFORE the Civil Rights Act was passed, Gallup Polls found that 2 out of 3 white Americans thought that black Americans had FULLY equal opportunity. 

Now, obviously, that's absurd, but that's what otherwise descent, sane, intelligent people thought even then. So...the hurdle for a lot of white Americans, and even some folks of color, is THERE. But the evidence is the evidence. I encourage people that are skeptical to look at the data...the footnotes, look at the data and decide for themselves.

#2: Being color-blind, or "color mute" is not an option. 

Julian Bond, civil rights legend, really says it best, "To be blind to color is to be blind to the consequences of color," (i.e., racism). 

Let me give you an example: 

If I'm a teacher right now in the state of Arizona, and I've got a lot of Latino kids, I can't be "colorblind" or blind to the role that their identity plays in their life, because there are right now in the eyes of some, not all...under suspicion as if they shouldn't even be there, as they don't belong. If I'm a teacher, and I'm gonna meet the needs of those kids, I've got to know where they are. I can't have this idealized version of life that says, "race doesn't matter to them," because IT DOES. 

As a parent (I have two kids), if you don't TALK to children ABOUT RACISM, both PAST AND PRESENT, they grow up — they can look around and see the disparities — they can see that who has what is often about color, who lives where is often about color — if you don't provide the context for that, you know what happens, those kids grow up, according to the research, to believe that those disparities are A) natural, which is a dangerous thought, or B) that the folks on the bottom are there because...they don't try hard enough, their bad people, they aren't as smart as the rest of us. 

So, really, "color blindness" or being "color mute" can actually feed racist perceptions. 

#3: We all have a stake in combatting racism and racial
inequality. That is, people of colors' progress HELPS
white people. 

"This is critical, especially for getting over that problem of [white] denial...a lot of times we...worry that...if people of color make progress it's gonna hurt white folks.

The fact is...racial inequity is DANGEROUS for all of us. In about 30/35/40 years...about half the [U.S.]population will be people of color, the other half will be white people. There is NO WAY that we can maintain a healthy, productive economy and society if one half of society has double the unemployment rate, three times the poverty rate of the other half, 1/10th the wealth, 8 years less life expectancy, double the infant mortality of the other half...we [MUST] worry about the racial disparity of the other half, and the racism that is, in part, responsible for them...because otherwise the whole society is not going to functional because of the racial inequity of the other half."


Food World Order : 80% of Pre-Packaged Foods in America Are Banned in Other Countries



If you or your kids enjoy pre-packaged convenience foods commonly found in grocery stores across the U.S. such as Froot Loops, Swanson dinners, Mountain Dew, and frozen potato and bread products, you may think twice before purchasing them after hearing what they contain:dangerous chemicals that other countries around the globe have deemed toxic to the point that they're illegal, and companies are fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for including them in food products. 

Froot_loops_in_a_bowl


In a new book Rich Food, Poor Food, authors Mira and Jason Calton provide a list of what they term "Banned Bad Boys" - ingredients commonly used in up to 80% of all American convenience food that have been banned by other countries, with information about which countries banned each substance and why. 

And though it might not surprise you to hear that Olestra - commonly used in low/no-fat snack foods and known to cause serious gastrointestinal issues for those who consume it (understatement) - is on that list, having been banned in both the United Kingdom and Canada, you may be shocked to hear that Mountain Dew, Fresca and Squirt all contain brominated vegetable oil, a substance that has been banned in more than 100 countries "because it has been linked to basically every form of thyroid disease - from cancer to autoimmune diseases - known to man." 

You might also be upset to hear that the food coloring used to make your kid’s delicious Mac & Cheese dinner visually appealing – yellow #5 and yellow #6, namely – is made from coal tar, which among other things is an active ingredient in lice shampoo and has been linked to allergies, ADHD, and cancer in animals 

Then there’s azodicarbonamide – commonly found in frozen dinners and frozen potato and bread products – which is used make things like bleach and foamed plastics like those found in yoga mats (tasty!).Azodicarbonamide has been banned in most European countries because it’s known to induce asthma, and is in fact deemed so dangerous that in Singapore its use carries a hefty $500,00 fine and up to 15 years in prison.


Yet, according to the FDA, it’s SO TOTALLY FINE for us to keep shoveling it into our kid’s faceholes: “[Azodicarbonamide] is approved to be a bleaching agent in cereal flour and is permitted for direct addition to food for human consumption.”
Finally, there’s butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) – found in Post, Kelloggs and Quaker brand cereals – which is made from petroleum and is a known cancer-causing agent. It’s been banned in England and Japan, but those of us in the U.S. can keep right on serving up to our children for breakfast, because AMMURICA. And FREEDOMZ.
       But why does it have to be so delicious? *sob*
Anyone else find all of this, ohhhh I don’t know, more than a tad bit disturbing? I’m not ashamed to say I have love for the blue box Mac & Cheese, and to think that chemicals known and recognized world-wide as completely toxic are included in that – a product openly marketed as being a meal FOR KIDS – makes me more than a little ragey. I mean, those chemicals can’t be what makes it taste so good, right? So can’t we, umm, just use something else instead?

Supreme Court Bombshell: No Right to Remain Silent

Supreme Court Bombshell: No Right to Remain Silent
The Supreme Court handed down a decision on June 17 that has been ignored by most media outlets, despite its devastating effect on one of the most fundamental rights protected by the Constitution.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled that a person no longer has the right to remain silent as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. In relevant part, the Fifth Amendment mandates that no one “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Salinas v. Texas, that part of the Bill of Rights has been excised — and has joined the list of so many other fundamental liberties that now lie on the scrap heap of history.
Here’s a little background of the circumstances of the Salinas case, as told by Slate:
Two brothers were shot at home in Houston. There were no witnesses — only shotgun shell casings left at the scene. Genovevo Salinas had been at a party at that house the night before the shooting, and police invited him down to the station, where they talked for an hour. They did not arrest him or read him his Miranda warnings. Salinas agreed to give the police his shotgun for testing. Then the cops asked whether the gun would match the shells from the scene of the murder. According to the police, Salinas stopped talking, shuffled his feet, bit his lip, and started to tighten up.
At trial, Salinas did not testify, but prosecutors described his reportedly uncomfortable reaction to the question about his shotgun. Salinas argued this violated his Fifth Amendment rights: He had remained silent, and the Supreme Court had previously made clear that prosecutors can’t bring up a defendant’s refusal to answer the state’s questions. This time around, however, Justice Samuel Alito blithely responded that Salinas was “free to leave” and did not assert his right to remain silent. He was silent. But somehow, without a lawyer, and without being told his rights, he should have affirmatively “invoked” his right to not answer questions. Two other justices signed on to Alito’s opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia joined the judgment, but for a different reason; they think Salinas had no rights at all to invoke before his arrest (they also object to Miranda itself). The upshot is another terrible Roberts Court ruling on confessions. In 2010 the court held that a suspect did not sufficiently invoke the right to remain silent when he stubbornly refused to talk, after receiving his Miranda warnings, during two hours of questioning.
Consider the ripple effect of the Salinas decision. Specifically, imagine how this ruling will alter the entire landscape of rights — including Miranda — and how they are applied (or not applied) to those accused of serious crimes. Here’s one potential application singled out by the Atlantic:
You know what's a much more recent wrinkle to the potential precedent effect of today's ruling? A case like that of the younger Boston Marathon suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who reportedly sat through 16 hours of questioning before he was read his Miranda rights. Had Tsarnaev, who was recovering from serious injuries at the time, remained silent during questioning without explicitly invoking his Fifth Amendment, prosecutors could, under the Salinas ruling, now use that silence to their advantage.
Guilty or not, suspects in the United States no longer have the right to remain silent. If they remain silent, moreover, that silence will now be interpreted as guilt and will indeed — despite what you see on television court and cop dramas — be used against that person in a court of law. Even, in fact, the highest court in the land.
Another terrifying twist to the Salinas decision is that it imposes on a suspect the necessity of invoking specific language before law enforcement will honor the basic civil liberties of a person who is (or historically, was) innocent until proven guilty.
Justice Breyer recognized how this novel necessity places a nearly insuperable barrier to invoking one’s right to remain silent. Writing for the dissent, Justice Breyer asked, “How can an individual who is not a lawyer know that these particular words [“I expressly invoke the privilege against self incrimination”] are legally magic?”
Breyer goes on to propose a “far better” way to protect a person’s right to not incriminate himself.
Can one fairly infer from an individual’s silence and surrounding circumstances an exercise of the Fifth Amendment’s privilege? The need for simplicity, the constitutional importance of applying the Fifth Amendment to those who seek its protections, and this Court’s case law all suggest that this is the right question to ask here. And the answer to that question in the circumstances of today’s case is clearly: yes.
In the black-is-white-up-is-down world that we live in, it is no longer surprising to see constitutionally protected liberties being championed by the “liberal” bloc of justices, while the so-called “conservatives” chisel away at the bedrock of freedom.
Our Founding Fathers understood how vital the right against self-incrimination was to the pursuit of justice. Consider the following defense of that right offered by imminent Founding Era jurist Joseph Story:
This also is but an affirmance of a common law privilege. But it is of inestimable value. It is well known, that in some countries, not only are criminals compelled to give evidence against themselves, but are subjected to the rack or torture in order to procure a confession of guilt. And what is worse, it has been (as if in mockery or scorn) attempted to excuse, or justify it, upon the score of mercy and humanity to the accused. It has been contrived, (it is pretended,) that innocence should manifest itself by a stout resistance, or guilt by a plain confession; as if a man's innocence were to be tried by the hardness of his constitution, and his guilt by the sensibility of his nerves. Cicero, many ages ago, though he lived in a state, wherein it was usual to put slaves to the torture, in order to furnish evidence, has denounced the absurdity and wickedness of the measure in terms of glowing eloquence, as striking, as they are brief. They are conceived in the spirit of Tacitus, and breathe all his pregnant and indignant sarcasm. Ulpian, also, at a still later period in Roman jurisprudence, stamped the practice with severe reproof.
In one day the Supreme Court of the United States now dispenses with a right defended by Cicero over 2,000 years ago.
Finally, read the warning issued by Abraham Holmes during the Massachusetts ratifying convention in January 1788:
There is nothing to prevent Congress from passing laws which shall compel a man, who is accused or suspected of a crime, to furnish evidence against himself, and even from establishing laws which shall order the court to take the charge exhibited against a man for truth, unless he can furnish evidence of his innocence.
I do not pretend to say Congress will do this; but, sir, I undertake to say that Congress (according to the powers proposed to be given them by the Constitution) may do it; and if they do not, it will be owing entirely — I repeat it, it will be owing entirely — to the goodness of the men, and not in the least degree owing to the goodness of the Constitution.
In the Salinas case, it was as Holmes wisely predicted: The goodness of the Constitution was not enough to protect one of our most fundamental and cherished liberties from the assault by an almost all-powerful federal government.

or

Friday, June 28, 2013

NYC Mayor: Blacks and Latinos Not Stopped, Frisked Enough, Whites Too Much


View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

Mayor Bloomberg said Friday that black and Latino New Yorkers are not stopped and frisked enough, while whites are stopped too much, when compared to the racial breakdown of crime suspects.
 
Bloomberg spent several minutes on the topic during his radio show Friday, and was making a point about how news organizations wrongly cast the debate as one about blacks and Latinos being stopped more than whites.
 
"They just keep saying, 'Oh it's a disproportionate percentage of a particular ethnic group. That may be, but it's not a disproportionate percentage of those who witnesses and victims describe as committing the murder," Bloomberg said. "In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they say. I don’t know where they went to school but they certainly didn’t take a math course. Or a logic course."
 
Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have repeatedly made the point that stop and frisk rates, while higher among non-whites, generally match the racial statistics on crime suspects. But neither has quite put it the way the billionaire mayor did on Friday. 
The city says 90 percent of the city's murder suspects are black or Latino, and 87 percent of people stopped by police are black and Latino. Whites are 7 percent of suspects and 9 percent of stops.
The City Council passed two bills this week to create an independent monitor of the NYPD and also make it easier to bring racial profiling claims against the department. Bloomberg has vowed to veto the bills, but both passed with enough votes to override those vetoes.

FOREIGN TROOPS ARE IN CALIFORNIA TRAINING TO KILL PEOPLE WHEN THE U S DOLLAR FALLS!!


“ONE OF THESE DAYS, AT DAWN THE U.S. WILL BE BLITZED WITH FOREIGN TROOPS”


 For those who still refuse to believe that something major is going on requiring preparation in massive numbers for our military and foreign militaries, welcome to your proof in the form of Dawn Blitz 2013. The video provides all the proof of foreign soldiers training for SOMETHING in America that you’ll need. In fact, China has taken notice that Japan is participating in these drills and has asked that the US and Japan cancel portions of this event, according to Marine Corps Times.

Camp Pendleton, Calif. – Marines from Marine Forces Reserve, 1st Civil Affairs Group will conduct civil military integration training with role-players here as a part of Exercise Dawn Blitz, June 27.

The training is part of multinational amphibious exercise Dawn Blitz 2013.
Dawn Blitz 2013 is a scenario-driven, simulation-supported amphibious exercise designed to train Expeditionary Strike Group 3 (ESG 3) and 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade (1st MEB).
The initial, synthetic scenario occurred Jan. 28-31, 2013, and the final live phase will be conducted June 11-28. Dawn Blitz provides a robust training environment where forces plan and execute an amphibious assault from a seabase in a land-and-maritime threat environment to improve naval amphibious core competencies. A total of 5,000 U.S. forces are participating in Dawn Blitz.


Woops! Obama Ordered Gun Report Reveals Guns Actually Save Lives



In a recent study orchestrated by the CDC and carried out by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, it was found that individuals involved in violent crimes who defended themselves using techniques other than carrying a gun were more likely to be injured when compared to those who were carrying a concealed firearm.
All-in-all, the Obama ordered report ended up finding more pros than cons in regards to the right to an open or concealed weapon. The report also reminds us of the numerous causes of gun deaths, citing that most gun deaths are at the hands of those who used a gun for their suicide — not homicide. The report highlights the poor state of America’s suffering mental health. The report states that suicide by guns outweighs the amount of deaths caused by violent crimes by 61%.
Anthony Gucciardi recently conducted an interview with Representative Joe Carr from Tennessee on this very issue:


Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/woops-obama-ordered-gun-report-guns-save-lives/#ixzz2XYWgQGhL

The Verdict Is In: Mainstream Media is Dead !!!


Mainstream media viewership is dying almost as quickly as overall viewer trust, and the alternative news is now rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the scripted media. A new age of media has begun.
But it’s not just based on my analysis, or the massive number of readers and viewers that we see transitioning to alternative websites for their daily dose of reality. In fact, the fading trust in the mainstream media has been documented numerically via a recent Gallup poll that confirmed everything we knew about the shift in information within the United States and elsewhere. And just like we knew that the NSA had been tracking us before Snowden officially cracked the lid off of the entire operation, it comes as no surprise to many of us.
What this means for the future of news, however, is very important. I actually spoke with Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo, an alternative news rising star and friend of mine, about this specifically in my latest video update. Storyleak and Sayer’s site right now are seeing record amounts of traffic, even for being relatively new on the scene, and people are craving information like never before. Checkout the video below:


Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/verdict-is-in-mainstream-media-is-dead/#ixzz2XYUzMetN



We now live in a time where you, the reader, can surpass the New York Times in viewership and reach through the use of a single smart phone. With truth being the most viral genre of content in 2013 and beyond, the mainstream media is still stuck reading the same old script over and over again. And I mean literally scripted. Checkout this hilarious yet disturbing video that portrays just how seriously phony the nightly news really is. Anchors from multiple stations, corporations, states, and countries are all reading off of the same text on the teleprompter.
And there’s more than one video like this. There’s hundreds on YouTube alone, in fact.
It’s time for you to get out and become your own news aggregator, support alternative news websites that aren’t controlled by mainstream media corporations, and fill the void left by the collapsing mainstream media. Because real people are much more alluring than script-reading talking heads.


Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/verdict-is-in-mainstream-media-is-dead/#ixzz2XYV7SjNG


Sayer's website: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/


Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

       Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

25.Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959)

Label: Columbia Records
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

24.John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (1965)

Label: Impulse!
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

23.Bob James, One (1974)

Label: CTI Records
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

22.Stevie Wonder, Songs In The Key of            Life (1976)

Label: Tamla
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

21.Marvin Gaye, Here, My Dear (1978)

Label: Tamla
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums


20.Michael Jackson, Thriller (1982)

Label: Epic
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

19.Run-D.M.C., King of Rock (1985)

Label: Elektra
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

18.Anita Baker, Rapture (1986)

Label: Elektra
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

17.Boogie Down Productions, Criminal            Minded (1987)

Label: B-Boy Records
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

16.Eric B. & Rakim Paid in Full (1987)

Label: Def Jam
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

15.MC Shan, Down by Law (1987)

Label: Cold Chillin’/Warner Brothers
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

14.Big Daddy Kane, Long Live the                    Kane (1988)

Label: Cold Chillin'/Warner Bros. Records
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

13.Slick Rick, The Great Adventures of            Slick Rick (1988)

Label: Def Jam/Columbia/CBA
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

12.Public Enemy, It Takes A Nation of              Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)

Label: Def Jam
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

11.Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Wanted: Dead or       Alive (1990)

Label: Cold Chillin’/Warner Brothers
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

10.Main Source, Breaking Atoms (1991)

Label: Wild Pitch/EMI
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

9. Ice Cube, Death Certificate (1991)

Label: Priority/EMI
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

8.A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End            Theory (1991)

Label: Jive Records
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

7. Scarface, Mr. Scarface is Back (1991)

Label: Rap-a-Lot
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

6. N.W.A., Niggaz4Life (1991)

Label: Ruthless/Priority
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

5. Dr. Dre, The Chronic (1992)

Label: Death Row, Interscope, Priority
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

4. Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle (1993)

Label: Death Row, Interscope, Atlantic
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

3. Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt (1996)

Label: Roc-A-Fella
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

2. The Notorious B.I.G., Life After                     Death (1997)

Label: Bad Boy
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

1. Outkast, Aquemini (1998)

Label: LaFace/Arista
Nas' 25 Favorite Albums

What Country Is This....????? Driver who refuses to blow is strapped to a table, put in a headlock, blood forcibly taken.



Every driver who refuses to blow is strapped to a table, put in a headlock, blood forcibly taken.


GEORGIA -- In some Georgia counties, as well as all over the USA, drivers are getting their blood forcibly stolen from them. As shown in this video, every driver who refuses to give the police a blow, even for misdemeanor offenses, is strapped to a table, put into a headlock by a police officer, and their blood forcibly taken.