The FBI released its 2008 Hate Crime Statistics report yesterday. Overall Hate crimes were up 2%. That’s bad and it gets worse. In the wake of President Obama’s election, hate crimes against blacks rose 8%.
Hate incidents related to the election occurred in all parts of the country. An interracial couple in Apolacan Township, Pa., who supported Obama, found the remains of a burnt cross in their garden. In Madison County, Idaho, elementary school children allegedly chanted “assassinate Obama” on a school bus. In Mount Desert Island, Maine, black effigies …

Once again race and blood stained tragedy has visited Oakland, California. This time 4 white police officers were shot down by a convicted black man attempting to evade an arrest warrant issued for parole violation. Three of the police officers Mark Dunakin, 40; Ervin Romans, 43; Dan Saki, 35, are dead. Motorcycle officer John Hege, 41, was declared brain dead Sunday morning and remained on life support to preserve his organs for donation. Lovell Mixon, the killer, was killed in an exchange with SWAT team officers.
When police officers are …

I have read and watched quite a number of stories which detailed how armed and race frightened white people turned on black people during the aftermath of Katrina. At a time when human beings should have been pulling together, some white and other privileged people who could have helped their neighbors instead decided that all black people were criminals, and anyone with black skin in close proximity would be greeted with guns and violence. The latest is the most disturbing. From The Nation – "Katrina’s Hidden Race War" by A.C. …

In the days following Barack Obama’s election, hateful racial incidents have surged. Some are more ominous than others, some with more impact, some just kinda stupid and annoying. Some examples:
Idaho school kids chant “Assassinate Obama” on a school bus and school officials are slow to (barely) react.
“They just hadn’t heard anything like this before,” said Whoolery. “They were chanting on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.’ Then adding in a name sometimes of a classmate on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama and Kate.’”
The Whoolery’s explained to their kids what assassinate means …

I apologize for posts coming a little slowly for the past month or so. Preparing for the big move on July 4th, Blogging While Brown and for the business conference I am attending right now has been a little distracting. Next week, we’re gonna get back into “it” full tilt, so fasten your seat belts.
In the meantime, there are important stories that I’ve not addressed here. I want to make sure you don’t miss them. So please follow the links below for the latest news you won’t find on cable.
An …

The first Hate Crime indictment has been handed down in the Megan Williams case, and the accused, Karen Burton, 46, is “relieved:”
Karen Burton was “a little surprised” by the hate crime charge but was relieved that an earlier sexual assault count was not included in the indictment, said her attorney, Betty Gregory.
“She didn’t want her children to think anything like that about her,” Gregory said.
Hate-Crime Count in W.Va. Torture Case, Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, Associated Press
More:
Karen Burton, 46, of Chapmanville, was indicted Tuesday on charges of committing a hate crime, …

I’ve been working myself into a knot thinking about the latest proliferation of nooses and the recent regurgitation of racial hatred taking place all over America. Racism is a virus, you know, seemingly impossible to cure completely. It lives in the spine of the American soul as a retrovirus, always waiting for the next trigger, the next opportunity to flare into full blown, incapacitating disease. The September 20th march in Jena was the trigger some white Americans had been waiting for. They cite that peaceful, massive march as an …

Megan Williams, the young black woman, who was kidnapped and tortured by at least six white residents of West Virginia, continues to speak out about the crimes perpetrated against her. In a revealing interview given to ‘Final Call,’ Megan Williams and her mother offer a more complete picture of the horror that Megan endured. Megan also details how she found herself in that remote shack and how police came to know of her imprisonment. It is a compelling account. And learning of the person who called the police restores ones …

A noose was found hanging on a lamppost outside the Church street post office in New York City. It is located at Ground Zero and was closed for nearly three years following the attacks in 2001. It was our post office and when it reopened, we felt like we could finally begin to embrace the new normal of life downtown.
I am thankful to have lived at Ground Zero and been right there during the attacks. Despite the almost indescribable death, sadness, fear and destruction, I witnessed strength, faith, resilience, generosity …

The New York Times and other news outlets of record refused to cover the story of nooses, unequal justice, unequal protection under the law and the beating of a high school student until these events sparked a protest so massive that they simply could not ignore it.
Now, the New York Times has given Jena district attorney Reed Walters a global platform to make his case without the slightest challenge. And while on this platform, Walters ignores some very important facts about this situation:
People are learning that the LaSalle Parish School …

I had decided to let the debate about whether or not the brutal, stomach turning murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom warranted a “hate crime” designation, roll on without any more comment from me. I was pretty clear in June when I wrote:
I am still not convinced that the torture and murder of Christian and Newsom is a hate crime in the most rigid definition of the term. I am not convinced that the race of the victims had much to do with how they were murdered. But, …

This case reads like an incomprehensible headline out of the poorest and most isolated war torn regions of another country. But it happened in Florida, about two months ago. Here are the details:
After dark on June 18, the police say, as many as 10 armed assailants repeatedly raped a Haitian immigrant in her apartment at Dunbar Village and then went further, forcing her to perform oral sex on her 12-year-old son. They took cellphone pictures of their acts. They burned the woman’s skin and the boy’s eyes with cleaning …

Looks like attention and support is starting to grow for the six high school students, unjustly charged in Jena. Here’s an update from Friends of Justice:
Friends:
Three hundred people from across the nation descended on little Jena, Louisiana on July 31st. They came to pledge their support to the Jena 6 defendants and their families. At the end of a two-hour rally, a dozen volunteers hand-delivered over 43,000 petitions demanding that District Attorney Reed Walters back away from the worst prosecutorial decision of his life.
Most of you will have heard that …

Alan Bean of ‘Friends of Justice’ has written a comprehensive update and analysis of the events in Jena, Louisiana. This account fascinates because Bean’s optimism is palpable. Bean believes that a sea change is headed toward Jena. I hope it gets there in time to help the young men on trial.

On Sunday, David Ritcheson jumped to his death from the deck of a cruise ship. He killed himself after surviving one of the most brutal and repugnant hate crimes in recent memory:
Ritcheson’s death comes less than three months after he testified before Congress about how two teens nearly killed him on April 23, 2006, by repeatedly kicking a patio umbrella stand into his rectum while shouting “white power!” Spring Teen who Survived Pipe Attack Dies after Leap from Cruise Ship – Bill Murphy, Paige Hewitt and Jennifer Leahy, Houston Chronicle …