A recent issue of the widely-read award winning sports publication Sports Illustrated, dated May 6, 2013, carried an exclusive interview with NBA center, Jason Collins, that caused a bit of a shock in some corners with its bold headline, ‘The Gay Athlete.’ By the time the issue hit newsstands, however, most of the nation had already heard of the revelation or read Collin’s personal story on the SI website a week earlier on April 29. From the first lines of the interview, it was apparent this was someone who was now bold enough to love and accept himself for who he was, with this simple declaration, “I’m a 34 year old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.” The 7-foot tall National Basketball Association veteran knew that this revelation would have an unforeseen impact on not only his life but the lives of generations of pro-athletes to come, for before 2013 not a single male professional athlete player had announced his decision to live his life freely and openly while still being an active player. (*) His story is one of triumph and tribulation, victory and defeat, love and loss, which he graces with an unusual amount of resilience and determination, aiming to better his self and the world around him. What got him to where he is today was the sheer talent he possesses and his aggressiveness on the basketball court, but his decision to speak out now and declare that there’s nothing wrong with being gay – that it shouldn’t play a role in determining the future happiness of one’s life – will undoubtedly secure a place for him in Athletic history that he once never could have dreamed of.
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Jason Collins: in open rebellion to hatred, bigotry and intolerance
Politicians Fume Over Bronx ‘Ghetto’ Bus Tours
Foreigners, who are looking to witness from a safe distance, what a “real ghetto” looks like are paying $45 a pop to take a bus tour through the Bronx, and borough politicos are up in arms, according to the New York Post.
Real Bronx Tours are taking mainly White Europeans and Australians on a tour of the Bronx with stops at for photo ops at a food-pantry line, “pickpocket” park, and housing projects.
USHypocrisy's take:
BlackAmericaWeb.com is reporting about a new "tourist attraction" for white Europeans who wish to come and see what a "real ghetto" looks like. At $45 a pop, these largely white visitors can come and view New York's most impoverished area as they sit comfortably and amuse themselves at the expense of those who weren't so fortunate as to be born with a silver spoon. Once again we have an "exhibition" of sorts, one of people struggling every day to make ends meet, that makes a butt-load of money by exploiting the lives of poor people, especially poor Black and Hispanic people. Those who live in the Bronx communities, of course, aren't making a dime for being basically put on display without their knowledge or consent. This case is disturbingly reminiscent of racist European colonialism. It's a scene right out of 19th century Europe, although at times such as this we must wonder if there is much difference between 19th century Europe and 21st century United States of America!
Returning from unintended hiatus (coming up..)
Coming up this week: Jason Collins – in open rebellion to prejudice, bigotry and hate.
Due to an unexpected inability to write, access and update temporarily this site for the past week, very little new material has been added. But that is sure to change within the next few days, beginning with an in depth article about NBA star Jason Collins’s historic announcement to live his life openly and freely. Stay tuned…
Mississippi Man to be Executed Tonight Despite FBI’s Admission of Falsifying Evidence!
In yet the latest display of Mississippi Jim Crow racism, death row inmate William Jerome Manning is set to be executed by lethal injection in the state of Mississippi TONIGHT at 6 p.m.! This, in spite of requests to halt the execution so that modern forensics can be used to determine whether there is even any physical evidence linking him to the crime. The original evidence used to determine his guilt in 1994, according to the FBI who originally presented the analysis, ”included statements that exceeded the limits of science and was, therefore, invalid.” Based on an assertion they now admit was completely unscientific, they had “determined” that a single strand of hair present in the murder victims’ vehicle “belonged to an African American”, enough to convince the racist court to conclude that Willie Manning was responsible for the crime. Will we witness tonight the next in a long line of brutal lynchings and Black genocide in the United States, or will there be a last minute miracle?! In the meantime there are some numbers below for you to call to try and make that miracle happen!
UPDATE: Hours Before Execution, a State Court Grants Willie Manning a Stay!
From Campaign to End the Death Penalty:
As of midnight, Willie Manning’s attorneys have not received any word
from the governor or in response to their latest court appeal.If you’re in the Jackson area, please join me on the Capitol Street side
of the Governor’s Mansion from 9 – 10 AM Tuesday. I’ll have 2 or 3 signs,
includingWe all need to be Sure of innocence or guilt. Test the DNA and hair !
Is it worse to execute an innocent man or
to admit a mistake in time to fix it ?
_____________You could also call the office of Attorney General Jim Hood – 601-359-3680
to ask him to ask the governor for a stay so the FBI can test the DNA and hair.Or call Governor Phil Bryant at 601-359-3150 to ask for a stay and testing.
______________If there is no stay and the execution is going ahead at 6 PM,
please participate at one of these events, or hold your own
at a state office or church in your community. Vigils will be held atarrive 4 – no later than 4:50 at Visitors Gate, south of main gate,
Highway 49, Parchman4:45 – 6:15 Capitol Street side of Governor’s Mansion
5:30 Smith Park (St. Peters if rain)
5:30 Sacred Heart Church, Hattiesburg
Please spread the word and participate however you can.
Jan Hillegas
Rep. John Lewis (GA) [IMAGE]
![Rep. John Lewis (GA) [IMAGE]](http://americanstatehypocrisy.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/johnlewis.jpg?w=229&h=350)
“Don’t turn away from rap music simply because it’s loud or violent or sexist or lewd – which so much of it is. Don’t turn away from the damage and destruction of drugs by simply declaring ‘war’ on them and filling our prisons with the people who use them. Look hard at where the need for those drugs is coming from. Look hard at what’s behind the anger and rage of that rap music. Pay attention. These are symptoms. They are responses. It is not the heroin-filled syringe of the addict that is the problem. It is not the hateful verses of the gangsta rapper that we must outlaw. It is the conditions and circumstances out of which the user and the gangster spring that must be looked at, understood and addressed. Change the world in which the addict lives and you’ll change his need for the drug. Change the world about which the rapper chants and you will change his words and his music.”
- Congressman John Lewis of Georgia from Walking With the Wind: a memoir of the movement.
Assata Shakur (IMAGE)
“I was sentenced to life plus 30 years by an all-white jury. What I saw in prison was wall-to-wall Black flesh in chains; Women caged in cells.. But we’re the terrorists?! It just doesn’t make sense.”
- Assata Shakur
‘Lest We Forget: the horrifying images from Abu-Ghraib Prison in Iraq [GRAPHIC IMAGERY]
In light of the recent Boston Marathon Day bombings, many have once again been motivated by fear to single out and scapegoat a certain segment of the population, Arabs and Muslims, in an attempt to hold them responsible for the violence that took place April 15, 2013. Given all the negative aspersions being caste on Muslims as well as foreigners and perceived foreigners in general this past month, it is perhaps more important now than ever before to look back on a very different April back in 2004, exactly nine months ago today. It was on the evening of Wednesday, April 28 that CBS’s 60 Minutes first broke the news that shocked the nation and the entire world. They had obtained 8 exclusive photographs of prisoners detained in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq being physically and sexually abused by none other than United States military personnel, and the question on everyone’s mind was whether or not this was official U.S. policy, or was it just a couple of soldiers “gone rogue.”
These photographs came to light only because a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, Spc. Sabrina Harmon, took pictures of the torture they inflicted and sent them to friends back home in an apparent attempt to boast about how “tough” she was being with these “terrorists.” Of course, in reality the U.S. military’s victims in this case weren’t “terrorists” at all. According to the military’s own intelligence, which was in turn relayed to the International Red Cross, up to 90% of all inmates interned in U.S. occupational prisons in Iraq, in addition to CIA “black sites”, were innocent and never charged with a crime. Instead they had been turned based on bogus information relayed to them by anonymous citizen “sources”, who in turn were simply responding to U.S. fliers notifying citizens that they could receive thousands of dollars in reward money, paid out under condition that they provide information on people who had “links to terrorism.” But what these painfully graphic photographs demonstrate is that terrorism is by no means exclusive to any cultural, regional, or religious population. The men and women held captive at Abu Ghraib prison and tortured throughout the year 2003 each had families, loved ones, hopes and aspirations much the same way as each and every one of us does. But unlike many of us, they were forced to suffer through unfathomable brutality and humiliation at the hands of their American captors, all in the name of U.S. Imperialism. What’s more, it’s easy to look at these images with disgust and anger directed at American soldiers who could commit such horrendous acts of torture, as indeed we should. But ask yourself: how different are they really from us? By “us”, I refer to the collective values that define us as an American people, who sat by helplessly, watched and even supported this war and countless others – from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It is absolutely essential to understand that neither these wars nor the horrific events unfolding in the pictures below ever could have happened without the public first being desensitized to certain segments of the human population. Throughout American history, groups who have been victimized by this sort of “us vs. them” mentality have included Native Americans, African Americans, Asians (especially the Vietnamese), and now Muslims. This IS in fact what War is in its most naked form. Once all the rhetoric of bringing “freedom” and “democracy” is stripped away, we are left with little, if anything, gained for the betterment of the vast majority of people. If this is indeed what “true democracy” looks like, do you really wish to partake in it?
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGERY AHEAD; NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG VIEWERS!!:
Why CNN Should Fire John King [VIDEO]
Should John King be removed from CNN for his offensive, stereotypical, inaccurate comments? Sound off in the comments below and let us know how you feel.
Three days ago, the United States of America was once again beset with fear, this time from the mysterious explosion of bombs that went off near the Finish Line at the Boston Athletic Association’s 117th annual Boston Marathon held in Boston, Massachusetts. For many Americans, the tragedies of September 11, 2001 haven’t ever really drifted very far from the forefront of their memories, and attacks like the one in Boston only reinforce the state of constant fear they feel for their lives. Perhaps none, however, have had to live in as much fear as those residents of Arabian or ‘Middle-Eastern’ descent, or who practice the Islamic religion (or are perceived to). Non-Europeans (or those of non-European descent) and non-Christians have always been judged and misjudged as “deviating” from what the majority population considers the “normalcy” and complacency of “Judeo-Christianity”. People descended from Arab-speaking nations, a plurality of whom are practicing Muslims, were forced to carry the burdens of even further stigmatization after the 9/11 attacks, because the attacks were carried out by men who claimed themselves to be practicing Muslims. The decade that followed carried hate-crime after hate-crime, as they constantly fought to combat stereotypes while coming under increasing surveillance from the ever-present FBI as well as the U.S. State Department. Of course, anyone with a basic understanding of World and U.S. history should know “terrorism” is far from being exclusive to humans who claim to be followers of Islam. The organization which claimed responsibility for orchestrating the September 11 attacks, known as Al-Qaeda, in fact were never supported by a majority of the international Muslim community. Yet to the West, the actions of a an extreme organization represented all of Islam, an extreme form of hypocrisy if there ever was one. How many times have all Christians been made to be held accountable for the crimes of practicing Christians of European descent? – which include, but are not limited to, genocides against the original inhabitants of the North and South Americas, genocide against the peoples of the African continent, the enslavement and subjugation of the African peoples, the lynching of thousands of Black people by the Protestant organization the Ku Klux Klan, and the Nazi-orchestrated genocide of millions of Jews and others. In our culture, it often seems as if we are unfeeling to the pain of others, and in fact glorify belittling them if it is to build ourselves up. That is why American culture is only able to see “terrorism” with a brown-face, because if it’s white or European, it isn’t “terrorism”, it’s “for the common good.”
This reality was put on full display in almost the immediate aftermath of the two explosions that occurred in Boston, and the media served as the vehicle through which these public suspicions were amplified. The most obvious example of this happened on April 17 during live coverage of the incident on CNN. The entire media, at least the mainstream news sources anyway, have acted as a pack of wolves eagerly ready to pounce on their prey in a race to see who can draw the most blood. Since the explosives were detonated, reporters have spent days repeating the same few facts they have confirmed, and filled in the rest of the remaining hours of news time simply indulging in incessant speculation. But suddenly at approximately 1:16 P.M. eastern time, CNN appeared to have a major lead in the case. In the video below, an odd scene plays out as CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer seems to tug at at a correspondent he calls “Julia”, and instructs her “not to go away”, for correspondent John King has returned and brings news that will certainly prove to be a “game-changer”. (It was odd scene because Blitzer instructed her to stay yet didn’t really ask her for any input.) King informs his audience that he has just spoken to two reputable sources of information, one “law enforcement source” and another who’d been officially “briefed”, and they’d informed him that by using “improved enhancement technology” on surveillance videos obtained from local department stores, they’d been able to “identify one suspect… placing [a] bomb in trashcan.” What follows is an excerpt from John King describing the so-called suspect, who he claims has been taken into police custody, using a description he touts as being “very sensitive” on his part.
Skinhead Police Officer Mercilessly Tasers 8 Month Pregnant Woman to the Ground in Illinois [VIDEO]
In what must have been one of the most horrendous displays of police brutality within the past few months, police officers in a front Best Buy parking lot in Springfield, Illinois forced an 8-month pregnant African American female passenger out of a vehicle and mercilessly shocked her with a taser at incredibly close range. In the video below, officers are heard ordering this pregnant woman to “Hurry up!” and get out of the car, which is an odd thing to order of someone carrying a child in her womb. Understandably, she responds that “No, ain’t no ‘hurrying up’” before a skin-headed cop approaches her and shocks her with a taser until she falls to the ground, all the while concerned citizens shout, “She’s pregnant!” So what was so important that the officer was called to the parking lot so that he could hurt this woman and her highly-developed fetus? It turns out it was nothing more than a minor car accident:
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