April 28, 2015

How drunk sports fans helped spark Saturday night's post-protest violence

url to the image: http://www.trbimg.com/img-553f395a/turbine/bcpnews-how-drunk-sports-fans-helped-spark-sat-001/580/580x327

On Saturday night, following the violence that broke out near Camden Yards, a photo of me supposedly protecting a woman from violent protesters surfaced on BuzzFeed and then trickled down to the conservative armpit of the internet where it was mischaracterized. In the photo, I look strangely heroic, and the picture was quickly co-opted by those who like to present an all-too-common and easy narrative: white people being terrorized by black people.

The truth, or as much as I have been able to cobble together from my own memory and notes, videos online, video I shot, and videos from City Paper’s Managing Editor Baynard Woods, is far less interesting, though much more important than “white dude saves white lady.”

I’m not exactly sure how the violence broke out around 6 p.m. in front of Pickles Pub on Washington Boulevard and traveled up the street to The Bullpen, Sliders Bar & Grill, and Frank & Nic’s West End Grille then down Howard Street. I know a small group of protesters and a small group of baseball fans started whipping bottles at one another and brawling. When the protesters turned the corner onto Washington Boulevard from Camden Street chanting “black lives matter,” some baseball fans applauded and a few angrily chanted back, “We don’t care”—someone who worked at The Bullpen confirmed this for me. He also said that some patrons chanted “run them over,” and one yelled “go get them.” Other protestors, including City Paper contributor D. Watkins and gang members interviewed on WBAL, recall bar patrons calling them “niggers,” among other racist epithets.

I don’t know who threw something first, but I heard a shift to jeers and boos from the people drinking and ran right over to it and saw beers being tossed from behind a gate that keeps Pickles drinkers from standing in the road and bottles being whipped back at the drinkers. Some people at Pickles stood up and moved toward the protesters though they were protected by the gate. Then, protesters pulled away the gate protecting Pickles customers from the street. Men from Pickles and elsewhere charged toward the protesters and the protesters charged the Pickles customers. It was at this point that I stopped being a journalist and became someone who was trying to help out.

A young woman from the bar threw a stool at me and others, and then affected a “come at me bro” stance. At the same time, many protesters were trying to tell the ones who were fighting and throwing things to stop causing trouble and keep moving. Some protesters began to grab bags of peanuts from a small stand and throw them at the people at the bar. The woman who threw the stool got hit in the face with a bag of peanuts and she went down. I helped her back up.


more: http://www.citypaper.com/news/all-content/bcpnews-how-drunk-sports-fans-helped-spark-saturday-nights-violence-20150428,0,5472440.story

April 27, 2015

Right-wing media exploits unrest in Baltimore to push ‘race war’ narrative

When Breitbart’s Matt Boyle isn’t framing xenophobia as “pro-worker” or rambling on about a big gay hate machine (don’t ask), he’s attending baseball games with his family. A harmless enough act, and one I’m glad to see rightwing demagogues and communists alike can agree is a wonderful way to spend a spring evening. While attending last night’s Orioles game, however, things quickly got out of hand for the Breitbart journo when unrest resulting from the apparent police killing of Freddie Gray boiled over into property damage and “clashes” between police and angry citizens outside of Camden Yards baseball stadium. Boyle’s piece begins with the type of breathless hysteria one would expect from Breitbart: “War Zone: Baltimore Erupts Into Violence, Chaos as #BlackLivesMatter Riots Rage.”

Where to start. First off: it’s not a war zone. Property damage and confrontations with police are not a “war,” they’re standard features of domestic unrest. Secondly, this was not a “#blacklivesmatter riot.” This was a #blacklivesmatter action that, like any large system, had a number of random people take matters into their own hands and damage some property. Finally, even the use of the term “violence” here is conveniently used. As activist Deray Mckesson point out on Twitter this morning:

When the police snapped #FreddieGray’s neck, the @BaltimoreSun did not call it an act of violence. Only black folk are “violent” to them.

Boyle would go on, again and again, pandering to an entirely unfounded fear that black activists were somehow targeting white people, despite the fact that several of the police they confronted were black and a great deal of the protesters were white. But never mind, Boyle had paranoia to sow and an agenda to push:

The crowd of protesters then stopped a blue station wagon carrying a white family as they tried to drive past Pickles, Bullpen and Sliders along a narrow one-way stretch between the bars and the main road (…) As hundreds of people looked on, including several police officers who didn’t engage the violent protesters, the white woman in the front seat—middle-aged and a little heavyset with dark hair—was visibly terrified. The group of black men who ripped open the car door suddenly realized they were separated from the larger group of protesters and abandoned their quest to seemingly either carjack the station wagon or rob the people inside in front of hundreds, driving out of the one-way street back onto the main road and presumably out of dodge.

White nationalist dog whistles don’t get much louder than that. What, in this context, does the race of either the “rioters” or those in their car have to do with anything? Again, there were white protestors and, presumably, several African-Americans attempting to exit the game. Indeed, Boyle’s further attempt to smear the menacing “protesters” belied the racial motive altogether:

…their quest to seemingly either carjack the station wagon or rob the people inside

more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/right-wing-media-exploits-unrest-in-baltimore-to-push-race-war-narrative/

I wonder what username Boyle uses here?

April 27, 2015

10,000 Strong Peacefully Protest In Downtown Baltimore, Media Only Reports The Violence & Arrest of

10,000 Strong Peacefully Protest In Downtown Baltimore, Media Only Reports The Violence & Arrest of Dozens



10,000 people from across the country peacefully protested in Baltimore in support of the seeking of justice of the death of Freddie Gray. Despite the fact that 100 of the 10,000 acted up and approximately 35 people were arrested after the peaceful protest, (that’s about 1%), much of the mainstream media used attention grabbing words in their headlines like ‘Protest Turns Destructive, (USA Today)’ ‘Scenes of Chaos In Baltimore… (NY Times), Dozens Arrested After Protest Turns Violent (WBAL TV). One website BreitBart.com’s headlines read: 1,000 Black Rioters In Baltimore Smash Police Cars, Attack Motorists In Frenzied Protest.

The truth is you had 10,000 plus people come together in unity in support of the fight for justice for Freddie Gray. While the numbers vary, 100 or so were the ones you saw acting up on the news and the 35 persons who were arrested were the ones you read about. But reporting that won’t bring in the ratings that attract a heavy advertising revenue.

CNN reported: Protesters angry over the death of Freddie Gray got into physical altercations with police Saturday night in downtown Baltimore near the city’s famed baseball stadium.

Some of the hundreds who confronted lines of police officers got into shoving matches with helmeted cops while other demonstrators threw objects. At least five police cars were damaged by people who smashed windows and jumped on them.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she was profoundly disappointed by the violence, adding that 95% of the protesters were respectful but a “small group of agitators intervened.”

Time.com reported: The demonstration was aimed at police, who had Gray in their custody when he suffered injuries that would prove fatal. Baltimore police said 35 people, including four juveniles, were arrested and six officers suffered minor injuries during the latest protest.

more: http://blackwestchester.com/2015/04/27/10000-peacefully-protest-bmore/

April 25, 2015

What else is new? Conservatives rush to defend cat-killing veterinarian

I'm sure by now everyone has heard about Kristin Lindsey, the veterinarian who shot a neighborhood cat through the head with a bow and arrow and then bragged about it on Facebook. Everyone with at least half a brain knows it was a horrible thing to do. Countless people have spoken out against her horrific actions, including liberals and "the mainstream media."

That's when conservatives HAVE to take the opposite stance. Just like with every other major headline, whatever most sane people agree with, the wacky right wingers feel compelled to be different. (See: George Zimmerman, global warming, Bundy ranch, etc.)

"If she had just had an abortion and was holding up the dead fetus, some of these same people would have been cheering her on." 339 votes

"Who cares, If it was in her yard it is fair game. If the owners have a problem with it they can keep the cat at home or on a leash just like a dog." 259 votes

"Texas is an open range state, if it was on her property so be it, I will be more than glad to use her veterinarian services any time, but would never use the clinic she was fired from if I lived in the area."

more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/25/1380230/-Conservatives-rush-to-defend-cat-killing-veterinarian

April 7, 2015

As Rahm Emanuel Faces Runoff, a Rundown of His Corrupt Record

Corrupt to the very end...

Rahm Emanuel is Mayor 1%. He speaks a politician's words to entice many Chicagoans to vote for him, but his actions are on behalf of his friends and colleagues in the business world.

Snubbing the Needs of Average People

The author of Mayor 1%, Kari Lydersen, tells the story of Helen Morley, a resident of the southwest side of Chicago and a regular patient at one of the mental health clinics closed by Mayor Emanuel. At Chicago's 175th birthday party in 2012, Morley pleaded, "Mayor Emanuel, please don't close our clinics! We're going to die...There's nowhere else to go." Emanuel ignored her. According to Lydersen, Morley and others believed that the mayor "didn't understand the role these specific clinics played in their lives and the difficulty they would have traveling to other locations."

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Cozying Up to Cronies

According to the Chicago Tribune, "The mayor regularly courts his benefactors behind closed doors.." Nearly 60 percent of his 103 donors received "contracts, zoning changes, business permits, pension work, board appointments, regulatory help or some other tangible benefit."

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Making Deals that Send Our Tax Dollars to Wall Street

Rahm Emanuel has made Chicago look good for tourists, sprucing up the downtown (Loop) business district, adding retail stores and office space. But the funding comes at the expense of average citizens. The mayor's plan for a South Loop hotel and basketball arena is using Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds (our tax money, meant for blighted neighborhoods), and stands to enrich a hedge fund that contributed to Rahm's campaign fund and then invested in the hotel as the deal was being finalized.

<snip>

His Legacy

The mayor claimed credit for a minimum wage increase, even though he didn't act until the State of Illinois began putting the plan in place. He took credit for a longer school day for the kids, but he didn't provide the necessary funding. He took credit for coal-burning power plant closings that resulted largely from neighborhood activism.

more: http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/rahm-emanuel-symbol-of-a-sick-america