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Breanna Edwards

It never pays to be mean, and one Utah mechanic is learning that the hard way after being captured on video berating a Spanish-speaking family who had issues with their car at a campground over the Memorial Day weekend.

In the video, Wyatt Pack, an employee of Weber County, Utah, was seen cursing out Jose Caballero and his family—all because the family’s truck had broken down, blocking Pack’s way into a Cache County, Utah, campground with their camper, News4Utah reports.

Everyone was just trying to enjoy their long weekend, but only one person truly ruined it.

“Fucking move it! Are you fucking deaf? Do these work? Move it!” Pack is heard screaming in a video taken by a member of the Caballero family.

Jose Caballero attempts to calmly explain that he could not move his truck because of an issue with the power steering, which only enrages Pack more.

“I’m a fucking diesel mechanic for Weber County, and I know you’re fucking stupid,” Pack can be heard saying.

https://www.theroot.com/utah-mechanic-recorded-berating-spanish-speaking-family-1826478298?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Root_twitter

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By Tanasia Kenney

Anti-racism activist Tariq Nasheed is fighting back after he says white nationalists targeted he and his family at their home in Los Angeles this week by calling in a fake bomb threat to police.

Speaking with local station Fox 11, Nasheed said he was roused from his sleep by a call from authorities, who instructed him to come outside. He didn’t think much of it, so he hung up. It took three more calls from police before Nasheed peeked out his front door to see several officers with their guns drawn. It turns out someone “swatted” him, or made a false report to police prompting an emergency response.

“They were told that there were bombs in the house and that I had my wife kidnapped and tied up,” he said. “It was just a whole thing they made up, and the police kind of suspected it could be a swatting thing.”

Nasheed, who’s produced several documentaries discussing race, said he quickly called the cops back and was advised to walk outside with his ID. The Twitter activist said he believes white supremacists made the call to police — the same ones who often target and troll him on social media. He claimed the folks responsible were associated with a “suspected” racist YouTube blogger named @Ice_Poseidon.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/06/01/hidden-colors-director-tariq-nasheed-accuses-white-supremacists-of-swatting-him-putting-his-family-in-danger/

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By David Love

The history of America is one of democracy for white male landowners and enslavement for Black people, with the latter struggling for the rights enshrined in the Constitution through protest and bloodshed. As marginalized and disenfranchised groups have fought to broaden the scope of who enjoys the benefits and rights of citizenship, they have been met with blowback and regressive policies, including violence from white America. The rise of Donald Trump and “Make America Great Again” reflects the level of white resistance to progress on the part of Black, Latino and other people. A new study delves into the thought process and political motivations of whites who resist.

In a working paper entitled “White Outgroup Intolerance and Support for Democracy,” researchers Steven V. Miller of Clemson University and Nicholas T. Davis of Texas A&M University suggest the greatest threat to democracy comes from the political proclivities of intolerant white people. Examining data from the World Values Survey from 1995 to 2011, the research found that racial, cultural or ethnic intolerance diminishes white Americans’ commitment to democracy. Further, the authors conclude, such sentiments of social intolerance on the part of white people make them more receptive to “undemocratic alternatives” such as military rule and the elimination of separation of powers in government.

The authors define social intolerance as an unwillingness to associate or fraternize with those whose culture, race or religion differs from one’s group. “White respondents in the United States … who expressed that they would not like to have various outgroups of interest as neighbors (i.e., those from a different race, Muslims, immigrants/foreign workers, Jews, and those speaking a different language) were more likely to support rule of government by a strong leader without legislative or electoral oversight, rule of government by the army, and were more likely to oppose democracy, in general,” Miller said. Miller takes note of the participants in the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and President Trump’s reaction to the white supremacist event — in which he blamed both neo-Nazis and anti-racist protesters and said there were “fine people on both sides” — as evidence of a “tenuous commitment to democratic principles.”

Miller and Davis believe the Unite the Right rally, which resulted in a murder, and other such demonstrations point to more than mere prejudice. Rather, aggrieved white Americans, in their view, reject equality and democracy because democracy protects the rights of marginalized, up-and-coming racial and ethnic groups that white nationalists loathe.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/06/01/intolerant-whites-prefer-authoritarian-rule-of-law-if-it-means-granting-rights-to-minorities-researchers-find/

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DAVID EDWARDS

Actor and Director Mario Van Peebles on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump’s handling of race issues and compared him to a “drunk driver in the White House.”

During an interview on MSNBC, the Mexican-born director reacted to Roseanne Barr’s recent racist remarks on Twitter.

“White privilege means you don’t have to be racially literate about other folks,” Van Peebles explained to MSNBC host David Gura. “People of color have to know white truth and white history. Because if we go in the wrong neighborhood, if we don’t talk to that police officer the right way, we could end up dead.”

“We’re very understanding of the dominate culture’s truth. They don’t have to be understanding of our truth,” he continued. “I think — and it’s just my theory — racism is linked to sexism, is around the corner from classism, is around the corner from the wholesale exploitation of nature.”

Van Peebles lamented that the current “climate” in the U.S. made it “okay to say things” like Barr’s racist comment.

The longtime director also observed that President Donald Trump has set the tone for racism in America.


https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/mario-van-peebles-drops-truth-bomb-trump-enabling-racists-drunk-driver-oval-office/#.WxUPE9zUqLc.twitter

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Four years after Ferguson, some stark data from Missouri.

TIM MURPHY

There is a stark new statistic out from the office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley: In 2017, black drivers in the state were 85 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers. That’s an even greater disparity than the state AG’s office found when it gathered the same data last year—and the biggest disparity since it began analyzing traffic-stop data in 2000.

According to the report, there was also a major disparity with how black drivers are treated once they are pulled over: African Americans who were stopped were 51 percent more likely than white drivers to be searched. And Hispanic drivers were 45 percent more likely than whites to be searched.

Four years after Ferguson, these numbers suggest that the institutional discrimination that launched a national protest movement—sparked by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown—has, if anything, deepened. And they reiterate that the phenomenon is hardly confined to just one troubled municipality; Ferguson’s racial disparity in traffic stops wasn’t even above average for Missouri last year. Of course, as my colleague Brand Patterson has recently shown, you don’t have to be in a car to come in for the driving-while-black treatment—in recent weeks, black people have had the cops called on them for everything from barbecuing at a public park to golfing too slowly.

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/06/driving-while-black-ferguson-missouri-racism/

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Damon Young

Of course, this is a question that has been asked (and answered) myriad times already—particularly when another Charlottesville, Va., happens, or another Mark Anthony Conditt or Adam Lanza or Dylann Roof or Stephen Paddock decides, with no clear provocation, to weaponize his anger and murder people.

These are men who exist in a country where men who look like them own most of the property, possess most of the money and run most of the businesses; where men who look like them sit in elected offices everywhere and create agendas and enact policies specifically meant to benefit men who look like them; where men who look like them are celebrated and amplified and exalted so frequently that it is literally news when those honors are extended to people who don’t; where they are never guests and where validation exists in perpetuity; where negative consequences for them are more of an idea—a theory, perhaps—than a reality.

And yet these men are our domestic terrorists. They are our militia founders and leaders. Our most prominent anarchists. Our most likely nihilists. Our angriest police officers, our angriest welders, our angriest plumbers, our angriest teachers, our angriest accountants, our angriest engineers, our angriest pastors, our angriest firefighters, our angriest college professors, our angriest presidents.

And I guess this question is asked so frequently because their anger is so perplexing. Sure, there are “answers.” There’s racial anxiety. There’s economic anxiety. There’s a sense of irrelevance. There’s an angst about their place in the world. There’s the feeling that a place that was once theirs no longer is. There’re women doing ... things. Each of these answers would be fine if not for the fact that people who are not white men are also dealing with many of these same issues. And because they’re not white men, they’re dealing with more potent versions of those problems.

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/why-are-white-men-so-angry-1823959497?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Very_Smart_Brothas_twitter

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Samaria Bailey

About 100 men and women shared their intimate thoughts and experiences of racial incidents at a community discussion on “Being While Black” at the African-American Museum in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The discussion was organized by WURD Radio and the Courageous Conversation Global Foundation as a platform for Black people to tell their stories and find ways to sustain themselves and their communities as they heal from racism.

“We need to have conversations around what we’re feeling,” said Andrea Johnson, executive director of the Courageous Conversation Global Foundation. “Everyone’s voice is important. If you don’t talk … that’s how we have racial issues that go unresolved and that’s a sickness.”

The stories shared were a diverse bunch.

A mother of a teenage son was the first to speak and recalled how the 14-year-old was compared to King Kong and called “aggressive” by a classmate.

Germyce Harris, a financial services professional, told of being followed while shopping while Black in an Asian-owned beauty supply store, a consistent experience that she said was one of the reasons she shaved her hair off and buys beauty products online.

Rafael Ross, 31, a Wynnefield resident and former activist, said he just holds a lot of rage. Having demonstrated in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and Flint, Mich., he added that he is burned out from being “tased, locked up and put into chokeholds” by police and “seeing Black girls thrown up against the wall.”

http://www.phillytrib.com/news/being-while-black-a-forum-for-stories-of-racism/article_fb21539e-e938-580d-a374-7aaaaa8a06b1.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share