SEATTLE: #BlackLivesMatter Activists Shut Down Bernie Sanders Speech

The Seattle Times reports:

A Seattle speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was pre-empted in a chaotic confrontation Saturday afternoon with a pair of Black Lives Matter protesters, who took the stage and refused to let him speak. The Vermont senator, who has drawn huge crowds around the country, was to be the star attraction and final speaker for a rally at Westlake Park to celebrate the 80th birthday of Social Security and the success of other anti-poverty programs. But his afternoon plans were scuttled by protesters determined to turn attention instead to Sunday’s anniversary of the shooting by a white police officer of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo. Later in the evening, Sanders received the reception he’d expected from the Seattle area as the progressive alternative to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. An estimated 15,000 supporters packed Hec Edmundson Pavilion and an overflow area as Sanders took the stage to thunderous applause and delivered an hourlong populist stemwinder about his plans to wrest the country from the control of billionaires.

LIVE VIDEO: Michael Brown Funeral

Ferguson PSAs Air During VMAs

Via Mediaite:

One of the ads is based on a quote from author James Baldwin: “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” The words show on-screen while the now-famous “Hands up, don’t shoot” chants are heard in the background. The other spot — with a concept title of “Look. Listen. Change.” — shows young people getting hit with broken glass while a narrator rattles off racial stereotypes. The Washington Post reports that the commercials were produced with organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

MISSOURI: Self-Described "Killer" Cop Who Pushed Don Lemon Suspended After Racist, Anti-Gay Rant Surfaces

CNN reports:

A Missouri police officer involved in maintaining security in troubled Ferguson was put on administrative leave Friday after a video surfaced showing him railing about the Supreme Court, Muslims, and his past -- and perhaps, he said, his future -- as "a killer." The officer, Dan Page of the St. Louis County Police Department, became something of a familiar face to many earlier this month when video showed him pushing back CNN's Don Lemon and others in a group in Ferguson. At the time, CNN was reporting on the large-scale and at times violent protests calling for the arrest of a white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed African-American teenager Michael Brown.

In his rambling remarks on the video, he talks about what he describes as a draft replacement for the U.S. Constitution, the "four sodomites on the Supreme Court," and a visit to Kenya "to our undocumented President's home." He refers to Barack Obama as "that illegal alien who claims to be our President." Page frequently references violence, including nine combat tours in the Army, during which he did "my fair share of killing." Speaking about Muslims, he says pointedly: "They will kill you." On domestic disputes, he opines: "You don't like each other that much, just kill each other and get it over with. Problem solved. Get it done." On urban violence, he predicts that "when the inner cities start to ignite, people are going to start killing people they don't like."

And lastly, Page says, "I personally believe the Lord Jesus Christ is my savior, but I'm also a killer. I've killed a lot and, if I need to, I will kill a whole bunch more. If you don't want to get killed, don't show up in front of me." Belmar, the head of the St. Louis County police department, said all the talk about killing was especially disturbing to him. "As a police chief, that's something I'm not going to be able to endure," Belmar said.

Page's speech was made before the St. Louis chapter of Oath Keepers, which describes itself on its website:

Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, and Fire Fighters who will fulfill the Oath we swore, with the support of like minded citizens who take an Oath to stand with us, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God. Our Oath is to the Constitution.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued several reports on the Oath Keepers, who were part of the militia showdown at the Bundy Ranch.

VIDEOS: The first report below is from CNN. In the second clip, Memeographs has excerpted some of Page's anti-gay comments. The final clip is the full video, which was found by Crooks & Liars.



RELATED: Another infamous member of the Oath Keepers is the former Pennsylvania sheriff who earned national headlines for his machine-gun-firing tirades while wearing a "Liberals Take It In The Ass" t-shirt.

Wingnuts Raise $235K For Ferguson Cop

Via Mediaite:

A campaign that emerged this week on GoFundMe.com set a goal of raising $250,000 for Officer Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. After just four days, the campaign has garnered nearly 6,000 individual donations totaling more than $234,000. The page, set up by anonymous supporters, states, “We stand behind Officer Darren Wilson and his family during this trying time in their lives. All proceeds will be sent directly to Darren Wilson and his family for any financial needs they may have including legal fees.”

GoFundMe has had to remove racist comments that have accompanied some of the donations.

Iranian Leader Uses Ferguson To Denounce Race Relations In United States

HomoQuotable - Steve Freiss

"White gay men as a group could be the truest friends black women can have in American society. No alliance is perfect, but this one has the potential, if nurtured properly, to reconfigure the stories of race and gender. White gay men — once intensely vilified but now able to harness our white male privilege for good, having learned what being on the outside is like — are a conduit through which black women can work against both countervailing forces that push them down. [snip]

"The mutual fondness between so many black women and white gay men arises both from similar, if not shared, experience, but also a strikingly similar approach to coping with it. Some tropes emerged from black female culture and some from the gay world, but how or why is the stuff not of pundits or essayists, but of doctoral dissertations by social anthropologists. We aren’t going to get to the bottom of that on Twitter.

"Still, cultural alliances like this are rare and should be treasured, not chastised. Black men didn’t have one. Neither did Jews or Native Americans. Arab Americans sure don’t. But through some fluke of cosmic association, black women have kindred spirits in white gay men. Don’t push us away." - Steve Freiss, in a TIME Magazine response to the now famous "Dear White Gays" rant.

"Dear White Gays" Author On CNN

Quote Of The Day - Sierra Mannie

"Dear white gays: Stop stealing black female culture. You are not a black woman, and you do not get to claim either blackness or womanhood. There is a clear line between appreciation and appropriation. I need some of you to cut it the hell out. Maybe, for some of you, it’s a presumed mutual appreciation for Beyoncé and weaves that has you thinking that I’m going to be amused by you approaching me in your best 'Shanequa from around the way' voice. I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t care how well you can quote Madea, who told you that your booty was getting bigger than hers, how cute you think it is to call yourself a strong black woman, who taught you to twerk, how funny you think it is to call yourself Quita or Keisha or for which black male you’ve been bottoming — you are not a black woman, and you do not get to claim either blackness or womanhood. It is not yours. It is not for you. So, you aren’t a strong black woman, or a ghetto girl, or any of that other foolery that some of you with trash Vine accounts try to be. It’s okay. You don’t have to be. No one asked you to be. You weren’t ever meant to be. What you can be, however, is part of the solution. Check your privilege. Try to strengthen the people around you." - Sierra Mannie, writing for TIME Magazine.  According to her Facebook page, Mannie will appear on CNN today to talk about the reactions to her piece.

Maggie Dismisses Race-Baiting Charge

In an interview just concluded on MSNBC, former NOM head Maggie Gallagher shrugged off charges of race-baiting. Kudos to Thomas Roberts for his opening question: "Maggie, do you continue to defend your own race-baiting to further bigotry and homophobia on a national level?" Video to follow...

UPDATE: Equality Matters has the clip first.

Rachel Maddow: Racial Integration Of The Military Vs. DADT Situation

Surprise. "Strikingly similar."

White Team Wins National Step-Off

A white sorority drill team from Arkansas won the national Sprite Step-Off this week, the first time a non-black team has done so. In the clip below, the audience seems ready to laugh them off the stage at first, but is quickly won over. But not everybody is cheering. Via News One For Black America:

Stepping, which is deeply rooted in the tradition of historically Black Fraternities, has moved into the mainstream. At the Sprite Step Off, a traditionally white sorority with all white members, Zeta Tau Alpha won the $100,000 prize. Bossip was in the audience and they agreed that Zeta Tau Alpha “brought it.” This can be considered of another example of how Black culture becomes mainstream and becomes appropriated by Caucasian people and becomes a greater part of American culture as a whole.

The comments discussion at both above links is fascinating. I'm reminded of Madonna's co-opting of vogueing.

A Miami Super Bowl Flashback

Back in 1989, Miami was host to Super Bowl XXIII. Several days before the game, Miami police officer William Lozano fired his gun at a moving motorcycle, killing the driver (and his passenger, who died later from the resultant crash.) The motorcyclist and his passenger were black, Lozano was Hispanic. Massive rioting ensued in downtown Miami, where I was the general manager of the AMC tenplex on the fifth floor of the Omni International Mall, steps away from the worst and most violent rioting in Overtown, Miami's third-worldishly impoverished black neighborhood.

Above the mall was the luxury Omni Hotel, which was hosting the Cincinnati Bengals for the week. Thursday night of Super Bowl week, the promoters of Mississippi Burning had arranged for me to present a special showing of the film for the Bengals. With the nearby streets full of rock-throwing rioters, only two of my dozens of employees had dared to venture coming to work, even though the mall was well protected by Miami's riot police. Therefore, I spent the evening shuttling popcorn and sodas to the players in the auditorium. I think we might have sold a total of five tickets for the other nine screens, all to mall employees too afraid to leave.

After the movie, some of the Bengals gathered at the giant mall windows outside our box office and watched Miami burn. Not lost on them was the parallel between the movie they'd just watched and the flames outside the mall. As the team captain and several players posed with me for a photo in front of the Mississippi Burning one-sheet, a couple of them noted jokingly that I was probably the only non-uniformed white guy for several miles, but I had to tell them that I too had spent the previous two nights upstairs at the hotel, an emergency courtesy granted to the mall's store managers due to rampant rumors that people were being pulled out their cars on the way to the nearby I-95 entrance ramp, something that seemed possible in the madness of that week, but never actually happened, as far as I know.

After the Bengals returned to their hotel rooms, I got a rare phone call from my father, who announced that my grandfather had died in New Jersey and that if I wanted to attend the funeral, I'd have to leave the next day. "Sorry, Dad. I can't leave the mall or I might get killed." Best funeral excuse ever? After the call, I left the office to find a dozen Bengals reassembled outside the box office. For their own safety, they'd been barred from leaving the mall. So would I mind running another movie for them? After a brief huddle during which they unanimously passed on Beaches, Dangerous Liaisons, Working Girl, and The Accidental Tourist, they couldn't decide between Hellraiser II and American Ninja III, so I ran them both. Nice guys and they left lots of autographed popcorn tubs for my employees. They lost the Super Bowl though, the first time I'd ever really cared who won.

And that's probably the only remotely sports-related story you'll get out of me.

Obama Speaks To China

As Greater Wingnutistan went crazy because he bowed to the emperor of Japan, President Obama spoke to China in a nationally televised address. Obama has been described by some newspapers as having "rock star" status in China, where his ethnicity has brought forth a rarely seen public discussion on China's problems with racial discrimination.

The White, African, American

A New Jersey medical student is suing his school for discrimination for the way they treated him after he described himself as a "white, African, American." Which, as a Mozambique-born Caucasian immigrant, he technically is. But he may also be an asshat, as the school suspended him for continuing to use the expression after being told others found it offensive.

Paulo Serodio said that in 2006, he told a professor and classmates that he was "white, African, American,'' which he says accurately reflects the fact that he was born in Mozambique but later became a U.S. citizen. He said some classmates and staff members at New Jersey Medical School found it offensive that a Caucasian man would call himself "African-American'' and that the fallout led to harassment and eventually his suspension from the school. Serodio, who lives in Newark, said some school employees and students told him not to describe himself as "African-American.'' In the aftermath of his comments, Serodio said, flyers were hung around the school mocking him, he was assaulted and his car was vandalized. His lawyer, Gregg Zeff, said Serodio eventually was suspended for ``conduct unbecoming'' a student. The suspension came directly from his remarks in class, Zeff said.

It seems like an immigrant living in Newark might be more sensitive to this country's concept of "African-American", even if he is a raging pedant.