While the Vanguard is largely not going to cover national politics and the election this year for a number of reasons, the moment last night of nine women standing on the stage of the Democratic National Convention talking about the loss of their children humanized an ongoing saga that has been divisive in this country.
Sybrina Fulton (mother of Trayvon Martin), Geneva Reed-Veal (mother of Sandra Bland), Lucia McBath (mother of Jordan Davis), Gwen Carr (mother of Eric Garner), Cleopatra Pendleton (mother of Hadiya Pendleton), Maria Hamilton (mother of Dontre Hamilton), Lezley McSpadden (mother of Michael Brown), and Wanda Johnson (mother of Oscar Grant) stood together as the “Mothers of the Movement”.
The three mothers, who spoke quite eloquently to the crowd, said they will not allow their children’s deaths to be without meaning.
As a father, when Ms. Reed-Veal, speaking of her daughter Sandra Bland, said, “What a blessing to be here tonight, so that Sandy can still speak through her mama,” it was all I could do to hold back tears.
There was one large and conspicuous absence on Tuesday night. It was Samaria Rice, mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot by police in Cleveland while he played in the park.
As she explained in a recent interview with Fusion, she wants a “better America” but cannot find it through politics. She told Fusion, for example, she “thinks Trump ‘needs some help’ and doesn’t give a damn about black people or correcting the system that let the officer who killed Tamir walk away with no charges filed.”
But she is not supporting Ms. Clinton either, noting that no candidate is “speaking my language about police reform.”
She wants “a lot on the table, not a little bit of talk, a lot of talk about police brutality, police accountability, making new policies, taking some away, and just reforming the whole system. I think that would make me feel better, and no candidate has did that for me yet.”
She is critical of President Obama as well, saying that she “doesn’t have any love for him either.” The President is not doing enough “to challenge the state on its role in police brutality. Even his success as the first black president has not protected black people from racist cops.”
“He may mention something about it, but he’s not really going to go into details about it and hold the government responsible for killing innocent people,” she said.
“I will never forget that day,” she told Fusion, feet from where Tamir was shot. “Them taking my baby away at 12 years old, I still had nourishment to do for my son. He was only 12. He had just been 12 for five months. I still had a lot of nurturing to do for him, a lot of holding and kissing on him, and stuff like that. I know just 12 years old for a boy is like a turning point. I was guiding him in the right direction. I really was. He was really not a bad kid.”
Ms. Rice’s views are illustrated here for a number of reasons. First, that there is not one view or voice of those whose loved ones have been taken. But second, this isn’t just about politics, this about righting an injustice.
As Janell Ross writes in the Washington Post’s “The Fix,” “Americans who have not suffered these parents’ losses should be mindful about the ease of dismissing these parents as people exploited. And they should be particularly dubious of any suggestion that any of these parents and what they see as solutions to the United States’ current political problems should be dismissed out of hand. At the very least, these are parents who have decided to channel their grief in the direction of a political process or campaign they believe capable of keeping their ranks contained.”
She continues, “That’s hard under any circumstances. But, that’s harder still when one party just wrapped a convention where some speakers implied that police should not, under any circumstances, face questions about how they do their work, or, that black America does not care if someone who was not a police officer took their child’s life.
“And, let us not forget those who spoke exclusively about the value of blue lives at the Republican convention as if the deaths of unarmed people of color is just reasonable collateral damage in the nation’s totally just pursuit of law and order.”
Here is the video of their speeches:
Here is a transcript of their speeches.
Geneva Reed-Veal
One year ago yesterday, I lived the worst nightmare anyone could imagine. I watched as my daughter, Sandra Bland, was lowered into the ground in a coffin.
Sandy, my fourth of five daughters, was gone. No, not on administrative leave, but on permanent leave from this earth, found hanging in a jail cell after an unlawful traffic stop and an unlawful arrest.
Six other women died in custody that same month: Kindra Chapman, Alexis McGovern, Sarah Lee Circle Bear, Raynette Turner, Ralkina Jones and Joyce Curnell. So many of our children gone but not forgotten.
I’m here with Hillary Clinton because she is a leader and a mother who will say our children’s names. Hillary knows that when a young black life is cut short, it’s not just a personal loss. It is a national loss. It is a loss that diminishes all of us.
What a blessing to be here tonight, so that Sandy can still speak through her mama. And what a blessing it is for all of us that we have the opportunity, if we seize it, to cast our votes for a president who will help lead us down the path toward restoration and change.
Lucia McBath
You don’t stop being a parent when your child dies. I am still Jordan Davis’s mother. His life ended the day he was shot and killed for playing loud music. But my job as his mother didn’t.
I still wake up every day thinking about how to parent him. How to protect him and his legacy. How to ensure his death doesn’t overshadow his life.
Here’s what you don’t know about my son. When Jordan was little, he wouldn’t eat a popsicle unless he had enough to bring out to his friends. He loved practical jokes. He liked having deep conversations about our love for God and why He allows suffering and pain.
I lived in fear my son would die like this. I even warned him that because he was a young, black man, he would meet people who didn’t value his life. That is a conversation no parent should ever have to have.
Hillary Clinton isn’t afraid to say black lives matter. She isn’t afraid to sit at a table with grieving mothers and bear the full force of our anguish. She doesn’t build walls around her heart. Not only did she listen to our problems, she invited us to become part of the solution.
And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to keep telling our children’s stories and urging you to say their names. We’re going to keep building a future where police officers and communities of color work together in mutual respect to keep children, like Jordan, safe. Because the majority of police officers are good people doing a good job.
And we’re also going to keep using our voices and our votes to support leaders, like Hillary Clinton, who will help us protect one another so this club of heartbroken mothers stops growing.
Sybrina Fulton
I am an unwilling participant in this movement. I would not have signed up for this. None of us would have. But I am here today for my son, Trayvon Martin, who is in heaven. And for my other son, Jahvaris, who is still here on earth.
I didn’t want this spotlight. But I will do everything I can to focus some of that light on a path out of this darkness.
Hillary Clinton has the compassion and understanding to comfort a grieving mother. She has the courage to lead the fight for common-sense gun legislation. And she has a plan to repair the divide that so often exists between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
This isn’t about being politically correct. It’s about protecting our children.
That’s why we’re here tonight with Hillary Clinton. And that’s why, in the memory of our children, we are imploring you—all of you—to vote in this election. Hillary is the one mother who can ensure our movement will succeed.
We leave you what God has given us, strength and peace.
***Note to commenters and moderator: This is not an invitation to discuss presidential politics, this is only an article on police, Black Lives Matter, etc. ***
“But second, this isn’t just about politics, this about righting an injustice.” Of course it’s about politics, they could have brought up the parents of the cops who were murdered, parents of children who were killed by random gunfire from gang warfare, parents of kids who were killed by black criminals, etc. Are those less unjust? Or less common? They were looking for a narrative to support their political objectives.
They did bring up a number of police officers.
In every group you can find a few exceptions. In this case I would question if they were really cops or just DNC operatives dressed in police uniforms.
OK
OK… nine women brought onto a nationally televised stage, at a presidential nominating convention, where they endorse a candidate. But, “This is not an invitation to discuss presidential politics, this is only an article on police, Black Lives Matter, etc. “. Yeah. Right. Got it.
Sorry but these conversations get way off track and my interest is not Hillary bad, Trump bad, but rather the issue of police and black lives matter.
Would it be OK to discuss some of the underlying causes of the problems with black (mostly male) youth? I am thinking about the breakdown of black families, the high incidence of single, poorly educated, impoverished mothers, the high black youth school dropout rate, the high incidence of black youth violence and crime and the corresponding high rate of black incarceration.
Yes I think that’s fair and has been where the conversation has gone at times. Again my one real hard line is not to get into a debate Hilary v. Trump
I also found myself near tears during this portion of the convention. The losses of these women are real. They are the innocent victims of violence just the same as if their children had been killed by a gang member or by a terrorist or by a drunk driver. The difference that I can see is that their loss has been at the hands of those who we pay to protect us, those who’s specific job is to keep these kinds of events from occurring.
It would seem to me that regardless of how one views the statistics on racial disparity, or how one views other forms of violence done by other perpetrators with other motives, we could at least all agree that major changes are called for in the areas of police training, de escalation of tense situations, enhanced understanding of the presentations of mental illness, full assessment of situations prior to acting with lethal force, a change from the bunker mentality regarding investigations to one of transparency, and a shift away from the militarization of our police forces back towards a model of community policing. Phil has told us in a previous post that these types of trainings do exist. My feeling is that they need to be universally disseminated and a primary focus of training rather than an adjunct or dismissed as the “touchy-feely” stuff as I have heard some doctors refer to courses on effective doctor patient communication.
Note to Tia,
According to the CDC 100,000 people every year die from healthcare acquired infections. By far the largest category of preventable mortality in the US. And this found fit neatly into your criteria of “their loss has been at the hands of those who we pay to protect us, those who’s specific job is to keep these kinds of events from occurring”. “Hands” being the operative word as poor hand hygiene among healthcare professionals is the leading cause of HIAs. However I didn’t see any hand hygiene victims on the stage even though an individual is more than 10,000 times more likely to die from and HAI than being shot by police.
It’s all a political narrative.
Emotional political narrative.
It is mostly an emotional political narrative on the left of politics, and give the Democrats and their help from the entertainment and media industry… they are much better at pulling those emotional strings.
Registered Democrats and those liberals that register as independents are more likely to vote from a basis of strong feelings rather than strong thinking. It is in fact they primary problem with modern Democrats and liberals as voters. It is exploited by the snake oils salespeople posing as political leaders, and it leads to a perpetuation of problems because one can actually cause problems and then simply state them in emotional terms to become attractive to these types of voters. All the politician needs to do is show empathy, and then these voters fall in love… kind of like an abusive spouse that switches to saying all the right words to make the victim feel she is again cared for.
Now on the GOP side, the current candidate is pretty bad at pulling emotional strings. It is both a personality issue, and is also learned for what is necessary in business. You don’t find a lot of really successful business people that make decisions from a basis of emotions… because those people would have generally failed in their business having made mistakes in business. There are exceptions in the tech industry because those are people having won the lottery of ideas… not having failed previously enough times to either learn the need for pragmatism and calculated problem solving, or deciding they need to work for someone else that tells them what to do when their emotions are uncontrolled.
Trump pisses off the voters on the left because he does not routinely project that he feels their pain (and modern liberals and Democrats feel a LOT of pain). Clinton pisses off people on the right because she panders to the emotional needy for personal political and monetary gain over the pragmatic and righteous things we need to do to really solve problems.
The social justice liberal and the media have made this country a mess with political correctness out of control, and the focus on symbolism and emotional narratives. They all want to someone to help make them feel better… to recognize their sadness, their pain, their anxiety. The media just wants to get lazy reporting. BS that gets a rise. Meanwhile Rome is burning.
Liberal social justice Democrats keep up a narrative for blacks that has no problem-solving end game. They want everyone to just admit that everyone else is a racist and that blacks are perpetual victims in this white-dominated society. Yippee-skippee…. that will sure make things better!
qielo
Being a political narrative does not mean that the issue is not real. These mother’s loss of their children is real. The loss of a patient to a preventable infectious disease is also real. The medical community is working very hard on attempting to solve this particular problem. Over my thirty years in medicine many changes have been implemented and subsequently evaluated for efficacy. What we have not chosen to do in medicine is to deny that there is a problem just because someone in infectious disease has built their career around the issue and we don’t happen to like them. We have also not chosen to say, well if the patient’s were only cleaner at home this wouldn’t happen. What we have chosen to do is to look directly at the problem, acknowledge its existence and to ask ourselves the question repeatedly, “What can I as an individual to do prevent the spread of infection ? ” Next we ask ourselves as an organization, “What can we do as a group to prevent the spread of infection.
What we do not do is to pretend that the problem does not exist, does not affect us or is not alterable through our actions.
Hi Tia,
I would have to disagree on this “The medical community is working very hard on attempting to solve this particular problem”. I was recently in a HCT unit with positive pressure rooms and physicians who are infamous for not washing their hands. I was also at an county health department outbreak analysis workshop where nine SSIs were traced back to one orthopod who was operating with a cast on his hand. What did they do about that? Nothing. Anyway enough OT
Just think how crazy the left would be if the Republicans brought out the Moms of nine white guys killed by black gang members.
The Democrats talk about how important “diversity” is but it looks like despite the fact that most people killed by cops are white they couldn’t find a single mom of a white (or latino) guy killed by cops.
SOD
“Just think how crazy the left would be if the Republicans brought out the Moms of nine white guys killed by black gang members.”
You do not seem to understand a critical difference. Black gang members are not paid by the state, through our taxes to go out and kill “white guys”. You are trying to pose a false equivalency that criminal behavior should be judged the same was as police activity. If you truly believe that there is equivalency here, then should not the police be held to the same standard as the criminals who commit the same acts ( shooting another individual) with the same outcome ( the death of that individual) ?
I do not believe that criminal activities and police activities are identical nor do I believe that acceptance that we have one problem precludes admitting that we also have the other problem. And yet you continue to make the implication that we should be looking at the criminal and not the police activity as the problem. To me, this is nothing but a distraction employed to steer attention away from the issue you would rather not face. Both criminal activity and police use of excessive force cause deaths. Both are serious problems. Both are worthy of local, regional, and national attention.
Tia wrote:
> You are trying to pose a false equivalency that criminal behavior
> should be judged the same was as police activity.
Did I say that “criminal behavior should be judged the same was as police activity”?
NO, I said “Just think how crazy the left would be if the Republicans brought out the Moms of nine white guys killed by black gang members”
Yes or No question for Tia would most on the left be upset if the GOP dressed up the Mom’s of nine dead white guys and brought them to the convention to help with their “political objectives”.
P.S. Since most gang members in San Francisco not only get government benifits but live in housing projects they actually are “paid by the state, through our taxes”…
If the RNC had I’m sure the Democrats would’ve accused them of racism, hate and darkness.
They did bring out the mother of the Benghazi guy but I don’t read and articles about tears on the Vanguard. But maybe David can suggest a holiday here for crazy homicidal dirtbags like they do in SF. BTW the fireman would get triple pay for the holiday.
Again, only discussing the police issue (which also answers your question).
Criminal acts by the state under the color of authority are different than normal criminal acts. Until people really understand that, these conversations are not going to progress much.
True, but I think that only one of the nine mother’s children was killed by someone that was found to have committed a crime. Another “hands up, don’t shoot moment” on the Davis Vanguard.
I think there are other issues aside from a crime which is difficult to establish in police shootings. To me the bigger issues are police use of force protocols and whether the shooting was necessary.
Out of the seven, three were shot and killed by someone not associated with law enforcement, one hung herself and two of them attacked the police officers before they were shot. (The last officer was convicted of a crime in the shooting incident) What police reforms do you suggest? Not allowing officers to defend themselves when they are attacked?
I’m not a doctor but I believe both are just as dead. Can we get a pathology consult?
SOD
“couldn’t find a single mom of a white (or latino) guy killed by cops.”
These women are members of a specific organization, The Mothers of the Movement. I am quite sure that the organizers could easily have found others, but these others would not have been members of this organization. I am equally sure that had they gone looking, they could also have found musicians other than Paul Simon or Alicia Keys who might have reflected greater “diversity”. That was simply not the point.
They brought in police officers who celebrated the exoneration of the Baltimore Police Officers without mentioning the underlying tragedy.
quielo and hpierce
“this isn’t just about politics”
““This is not an invitation to discuss presidential politics, this is only an article on police, Black Lives Matter”
“They were looking for a narrative to support their political objectives.”
I think that you two may have missed the significance of the word “just” in the first phrase. I do not believe that David is claiming that the convention was not a political format, or that there is not a political backstory here but rather that his intent with the article is to spur discussion of police actions and the Black Lives Matter movement.
It is patently obvious that “they were looking for a narrative to support their political objectives”. These is a national political convention. Would you expect them to be doing otherwise ? I believe that what David is clarifying is his intent for the direction of the conversation, not a false claim that the Democratic Party did not include this to bolster their positions.
Tia wrote:
> It is patently obvious that “they were looking for a narrative to support their political objectives”
Just like it would be offensive if the Republicans brought out the mothers of white kids killed by “illegal aliens” to support their “political objectives” it is offensive that the Democrats are parading the mothers of dead black kids killed by cops to help them with their “political objectives”…
SOD
So were you offended by the testimony of the mother of the man who died in the Bengazi attack ? I personally was not. I think that it is a legitimate function of political candidates to call to attention through the words of people willing to address an issue, those matters that they consider to be of national importance. It is then up to the public to decide if the issues being presented are of importance and how they might best be addressed.
Tia:
> So were you offended by the testimony of the mother of the
> man who died in the Bengazi
Yes I was offended, what really offends me is that so many Americans on the right listen to Republican propaganda that make them think that ISIS out killing lots of innocent Americans (when more Americans have died on skateboards) so they don’t pay attention to the rich GOP donors getting richer as they crush small business in America and ship jobs overseas.
It is also sad that Democrats (who have a higher percentage of registered voters with college degrees) listen to Democrat propaganda that make them think that cops are running wild killing people of color (when more people of color die slipping in the bathtub each year) so they don’t pay attention the rich Democrat donors getting richer as they crush small business in America and ship jobs overseas.
P.S. Since I knew I would be offended I did not watch even 10 seconds of the RNC or DNC…
” I do not believe that David is claiming that the convention was not a political format, or that there is not a political backstory here but rather that his intent with the article is to spur discussion of police actions and the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Thank you.
David, you know that thanking Tia for telling us all what you were thinking will just encourage her to tell even more people what they are thinking. Just like giving an alcoholic a drink is bad encouraging someone who struggles with telling others what they are thinking is also bad…
P.S. This morning it looks like Tia got it right with you but wrong with me an hpierce (a poor 33% success rate of guessing what others were thinking)…
In fairness, she knows me a little better than you guys
“You guys”? Are you including me?
WHOA! At least as for ME, you read WAY too much into my post… I was responding to DG’s ‘disclaimer’ [first “post”]. PERIOD. As to my comment, your response is not only dismissive, but flat out incorrect.
The word “just” just does not appear in that first post, to which I responded… so much for your (pseudo-?) sensitivity to folk reading things into your posts that you insist you did not say.
hpierce wrote:
> so much for your (pseudo-?) sensitivity to folk reading things into
> your posts that you insist you did not say.
I wonder if Tia could even make it 72 hours without telling someone “what they are thinking” or “what they really mean” by their post…
Look my comment was trying to keep this conversation on topic, and you’re moving it off topic which means we are not discussing the substance of the issue or the comments by the women.
No… Tia did… I responded to Tia’s comment… based on her response to my first comment, which was not “off-topic”… my first comment acknowledged what you said you intended. I said, I “got it”. Other than noting the FACT that the context of the women speaking was the democrats national convention, I have not brought politics into this at all… you and Tia have, however obliquely.
I actually agree (strongly) that the focus should be on stopping the violence, and justice… yet you, Tia, and others seem bent on framing those in political terms. The issues transcend politics (or should), but politics are the ‘tar-baby’ in discussing the issues… once you “touch it”, it becomes very difficult to release it.
Apologies for that blame – the way I normally read comments it’s sometimes hard to follow chains.
I do disagree with the comment about framing it on political terms – I know quite a few conservatives that agree on the need for police reform. It’s hard to avoid talking in political terms when you’re pulling from a transcript at a political convention.
OK. Yet,
Let’s see… who culled from the transcript? Who said that the conversation should steer away from “presidential politics”? Yet I avoid that, and was excoriated by you and Tia… you have since acknowledged that I was wrongfully blamed.
Pretty sure Tia will never admit such a thing… reminds me of what might be a paraphrase of a famous line from the movie “Love Story”… ‘Self-righteousness means you never have to apologize’.
David,
the BLM has been discussed ad infinitum on this board. Perhaps there is more interest in why the DNC selected who they did and what is the objective? I’m a guy who has no interest in the superbowl but a lot of interest in the commercials produced for that event and what they imply for popular culture.
Should cops be shooting people for no particular reason? No. Should cops who do that be held accountable for their actions? yes. Is this one of the top 50 problems I see challenging us? No. Are the mothers being pimped by the DNC the same way the RNC trotted out the mother of the Benghazi guy? Yes.
Is this one of the top 50 problems I see challenging us?
I guess this is where you and I disagree. I would put it in the top 5.
“I guess this is where you and I disagree. I would put it in the top 5”
Is it more important than global terrorism? Healthcare acquired infections? Global warming? Population growth? Air pollution? Water Pollution? Anti-biotic resistance?
Global warming would be at the top, but I view criminal justice reform including this issue in a group that includes the poverty-crime-incarceration cycle.
David’s identity is a social justice liberal. So from his perspective it is more important that those other things. Unfortunately.
OK
Frankly: Anyone who lives in Davis cannot be too interested in African-American issues except as a distant spectator.
What if we have African American friends and relatives?
This day and age, many do. In fact, I would guess that more do than don’t.
But yes, I see how that would shape your views.
I have a cousin that is a bit of an anarchist. Marched with the occupy movement. Did a lot of drugs in his youth. Probably still does. Had a hard life from a parental perspective. His mom, my aunt, was a high school drop out and did a lot of drugs. He of course was a Bernie Sanders supporter.
He argues your arguments about law enforcement… but a bit less on the racism narrative and more on the just what he sees as unfairness in who cops target and how they do it.
I see this issue as not so much a race issue as a class and behavior conformance issue.
Law enforcement and the judicial are more forgiving of people that appear to be part of the upper class and the professional class. For example, it is much less likely that a cop will suspect a newer minivan as having occupants that are up to no good. But older model cars with certain attributes that tend to be adopted by a class of people more likely to have a criminal record of involved in some law breaking… well cops pay more attention to them (and it is a rational thing).
My cousin has long hair and a beard (looks a bit like Jesus) and bathes less often than what I would guess is the upper-class norm. His his friends are the same. They do drugs (mostly pot but other things). He rides a Harley. His friends have old clunker cars. They live in Texas. He says he is harassed by the cops all the time.
I have had employees that have struggled in their jobs because they failed to adopt the appearances of compliance. They would be targeted by other employees for being out of line. My counsel to these employees was always to tell them that they needed to follow the rules, and outside the rules they could be as free-spirited and creative as they wanted to be, but then accept that others may give them grief noting the “rebel” streak. In other words, don’t reject conformity to the group norms and then come complaining to me, the boss, that others are not treating you fairly.
What I see is frustration in the black community for their class situation and then their related chosen cultural identity and how they feel they are treated. And then empathy from liberals that see this and have a problem with it because they tend to be more free-spirit and reject social norms of conformity.
It isn’t a white thing… it is a business thing. It is a capitalism thing. It is a freedom thing. It is really an American thing.
Liberals reject these things because liberals in general don’t feel like they fit in to it.
We saw this at UCD with the liberal arts side of the university wanting Katehi’s head on a platter, and the STEM side supporting her.
Everyone wants positive attention and wants to feel like they are accepted into the tribe.
The problem is that the rejection of those American things… those values that the left labels as “white” are really the good things.
Blacks would do much better as a group if more of them adopted values that they current reject as white. Asians have adopted them and Asians as a group are doing better than whites as a group.
I get the basis for your positions on these things, I just think you are pushing for non-solutions… basically greater social acceptance of a level of non-conformity that is really quite destructive.
quielo:
I’m gonna go with Martin Luther King, Jr. on this one: “A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Eric,
“I’m gonna go with Martin Luther King, Jr. on this one: “A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Heard it before of course though I have to confess it’s never made any sense to me. If it is true then we should focus on righting injustices globally in order of seriousness. For example would policing in the US be a greater injustice compared the situation in Sudan for example? If not then let’s focus on the greatest injustices and get to policing issues in turn. Eric, what are your top five?
Q
Let me throw it back to you. What did you find new or different from last night compared to the last 15 times you have posted about BLM? It seems like you could just cut and paste previous comments. The only thing I found different was the priority however you have made that off limits.
So let’s get this straight. An article is written where Hillary has much praise heaped all over her but we aren’t allowed to address that?
That, essentially, is correct, as I read the article and the first post. Called “home field advantage/rules”, or that famous variation of “the golden rule” (them that have the ‘gold’, make the rules)… but I am not speaking politically, Tia. Evidence-based comment.
David said “presidential” politics was ‘out of bounds’… by the plain meaning of the words he used, Congressional, State, and local politics, or politics in general (but not “presidential”) are ‘in-bounds’, and are available for play.
Commentary: Mothers of Those Killed by Police Speak Out
Except only three of the seven mothers on stage had their children “Killed by Police”. But why should we let facts get in the way of a good story when trying to prove that a problem exists. “Hands up, don’t shoot”
Lie. We’re finding much of the DNC platform is based on lies.
hpierce
“Yet I avoid that, and was excoriated by you and Tia”
I don’t recall “excoriating” anyone this morning. A difference in interpretation of intent for me does not equal “extortion.” I am not sure just where the vitriol is coming from this morning. Perhaps you would like to quote my “excoriating” comment which would allow me to apologize if I were to be in agreement with your interpretation rather than just assuming that I would never apologize.
““extortion.”
Sorry, all. That obviously should have read “A difference in interpretation of intent for me does not equal “excoriation”. Obviously my spell check had other intentions.
yeah… you ‘apologized’ to “all”, yet you used the word “extortion” towards me… OK, I get it. You sorta’ took it back.
All charges dropped in Freddie Gray investigation.
Many commenters on here at the time said that Moseby was inept and had overcharged but we had the usual apologists standing up for her and her fake charges.
You should all step forward now and admit that you were wrong.
I don’t agree.
All six had the bogus charges dropped.
She’s blaming the system for her overcharging and ineptness. Typical!
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/07/27/all-charges-dropped-in-freddie-gray-case-no-convictions.html
I wonder why nobody here has caught on to the fact that there was absolutely nothing said about the FATHERS of those killed by police? This leads us to what is perhaps the biggest tragedy for blacks in this country which is the breakdown of the family and the lack of fathers and positive male role models for black boys and young men.
If we really thought that black lives mattered, we would be raising the issue of black youth being born to single, impoverished, poorly educated girls.
When will we start talking about how to improve life for future generations of black youth?
“When will we start talking about how to improve life for future generations of black youth?”
Maybe the very best way would be to improve their chances of living into adulthood, regardless of who is threatening their lives.
How? I agree with your premise of improving all our children’s chances of living to adulthood… white, black, latino, native american, etc., etc., etc.,…