Different Day, Same Shit.

- Alternet's Sam Adler-Bell interviews Robin DiAngelo on the concept of "white fragility" and how terms like "white privilege" and "entitlement" are losing their effectiveness in the white mindspace. Witness DiAngelo succinctly explain the origins of white fragility and how feelings of superiority are cultivated in the first place:

RD: Exactly. And white fragility also comes from a deep sense of entitlement. Think about it like this: from the time I opened my eyes, I have been told that as a white person, I am superior to people of color. There’s never been a space in which I have not been receiving that message. From what hospital I was allowed to be born in, to how my mother was treated by the staff, to who owned the hospital, to who cleaned the rooms and took out the garbage. We are born into a racial hierarchy, and every interaction with media and culture confirms it—our sense that, at a fundamental level, we are superior.

And, the thing is, it feels good. Even though it contradicts our most basic principles and values. So we know it, but we can never admit it. It creates this kind of dangerous internal stew that gets enacted externally in our interactions with people of color, and is crazy-making for people of color. We have set the world up to preserve that internal sense of superiority and also resist challenges to it. All while denying that anything is going on and insisting that race is meaningless to us.

One of the best quotes in the interview, IMHO.

- Strong Towns has a series of articles on American suburbia as a glorified ponzi scheme and the growing costs of maintaining this far-flung infrastructure. Yours truly will hopefully have a post on gentrification and suburbia's changing demographics later on.

- In post-racial America, blatant, naked discrimination takes more subtle, insidious forms. For instance, Mother Jones' Marc Bookman shows how virulent racism affects how the gears of the justice system turns for minorities. To wit:

...nearly eight years after Kenneth Fults was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering his neighbor Cathy Bounds in Spalding County, Georgia, one of the trial jurors made a startling admission under oath: He'd voted for the death penalty, he said, because "that's what that nigger deserved."

In 2005, a former prosecutor in Texas revealed that her superiors had instructed her, if she wanted to strike a black juror, to falsely claim that she'd seen the person sleeping. This was just a dressed-up version of the Dallas prosecution training manual from 1963, which directed assistant district attorneys to "not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans, or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated."

As the clock wound down on Osborne's appeals, a former US attorney general, a former Georgia chief justice, and former President Jimmy Carter (previously the governor of Georgia) all spoke out against the execution. They had heard the allegation by another one of Mostiler's clients, a white man named Gerald Huey, that Mostiler had told him, speaking of Osborne, that "that little nigger deserves the chair."

a transcript from the trial of Derrick Middlebrooks, a black defendant who was so troubled by the racist talk that he asked the judge to dismiss Mostiler as his public defender: "He indicated to me that he wouldn't—he couldn't go up there among them niggers because them niggers would kill him," Middlebrooks said. "Now personally I don't know if he meant anything really by it. But I find it, you know, kind of hard to have an attorney to represent me when he uses those type of words. It doesn't help my confidence in my attorney."

This is nothing new, aside from the fact that things like these are being aired out for all the world to see.

- Gawker's David Graeber talks about Ferguson and how a perfect storm of institutional racism and policing for profit has culminated into a system that essentially harvests its own captive citizenry while keeping them locked in a permanent state of underclassdom.

- Abagond talks about segregation academies and their legacy. A few of the commentators are also discussing how integration has possibly done more harm than good for the black community (which is something I'll talk about at a later date, as well).

Walton Henry Butler, 59, allegedly shot the 32-year-old Everett Gant in the head, who visited his Port Saint Joe apartment to confront him about making racist comments to children in the apartment complex, according to the Broward Palm Beach New Times. The blog reports that Butler proceeded to eat dinner as Gant lay bleeding outside his door and cites an affidavit saying that Butler used the racial slur when questioned by the sheriff.

Butler is charged with attempted murder with a hate crime enhancement.

Police said Butler called 911, and expressed confusion at his arrest. "He was brought to the investigation unit where he was interviewed and basically admitted to shooting the victim and said he shot a, used a racial slur, and said that is what he shot and acted like it was not like a big deal or anything to him," Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent told WJHG.

What's the big deal? He only shot a ni-*clang!*

When people ask if we're truly in a "post-racial" society, you can include this incident in a growing pile of incidents as evidence to the contrary. If Trayvon Martin and the ongoing abuses meted out by law enforcement throughout the country didn't shank your idea of a "post-racial" America into a bloody heap, this incident should blast it's head clean off its naive shoulders. Black Americans are living in a country where a significant portion of the population actively hates them and, if it wasn't for criminal punishments and societal consequences, they'd grab a rope and have themselves a good ol' fashioned picnic.

I doubt anything will happen to this guy once he sets foot in prison. The staff will most likely isolate him from the rest of the general population to keep headline-making incidents from happening. Once he's inside, he can always hook up with the resident Aryan Brotherhood for protection. Unless someone's brazen or crafty enough to drive a shank through his cold heart, he's going to remain untouched for the duration of his prison stay.

Meanwhile:

A police investigation has been launched in response to the shooting death of a 21-year-old man. The victim was shot in the head and died from his injuries while handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police patrol car on Saturday night. The victim, Chavis Carter, was riding as a passenger in a pickup truck that happened to be pulled over by police in Jonesboro, Arkansas. According to a report, an officer found marijuana and decided to run Carter’s information. The officer discovered that Carter had a warrant from Mississippi so he was put into the patrol car.

“As protocol, he was handcuffed behind his back, double-locked and searched,” said Jonesboro Police Department Sgt. Lyle Waterworth.

Minutes after putting Carter in the vehicle, officers claim they heard a thump noise. They turned to the vehicle and found that Carter had been shot in the head. Waterworth said that he believes Carter had a gun hidden on himself, which he pulled out and then shot himself with.

“Any given officer has missed something on a search, you know, be it drugs, be it knives, be it razor blades,” he said. “This instance, it happened to be a gun.”

Carter’s mom, Teresa Carter, does not agree with the police. “I think they killed him,” she said. “My son wasn’t suicidal.” She was told that her son suffered a bullet wound in his right temple. Her son is left-handed. “I mean, I just want to know what really happened,” she said. “That’s all I want to know.”

Yes, exactly how does a left-handed person with his hands cuffed behind his back manage to get a hold of a "hidden" gun and shoot himself in his right temple? Secondly, why would he kill himself over a simple arrest? I hate to say it, but many black Americans who are about the criminal life treat jail as just another phase in their semi-short and violent lives. Suicide doesn't figure in this case.

Unless it was "cop-assisted 'suicide'." Yep, definitely the worst case of "suicide" I've ever seen. I can bet money on an officer deciding to do away with this gentleman by killing him with a throwdown weapon.

At least Alexis Sumpter wasn't killed by the cops over a MetroCard. There's a lot going wrong when we're relieved that law enforcement officials merely harass us instead of summarily executing us for frivolous and trivial shit. Something's definitely wrong with that picture.