Saturday, December 20, 2014

Activist and Public Intellectual Tom Hayden On Why The U.S. Renewal Of Diplomatic Relations With Cuba Is A Victory For the Cuban Revolution

http://www.thenation.com/article/193273/why-us-cuba-deal-really-victory-cuban-revolution

Why the US-Cuba Deal Really Is a Victory for the Cuban Revolution

TOM HAYDEN
(b. 1939)

No one in the mainstream media will acknowledge it, but the normalization of American relations with Havana, symbolized by release of prisoners today, is a huge success for the Cuban Revolution.

The hostile US policy, euphemistically known as “regime change,” has been thwarted. The Cuban Communist Party is confidently in power. The Castros have navigated through all the challenges of the years. In Latin America and the United Nations, Cuba is accepted, and the United States is isolated.

It is quite legitimate for American progressives to criticize various flaws and failures of the Cuban Revolution. But the media and the right are overflowing with such commentary. Only the left can recall, narrate and applaud the long resistance of tiny Cuba to the northern Goliath.

For those actually supportive of participatory democracy in Cuba, as opposed to those who support regime change by secret programs, the way to greater openness on the island lies in a relaxation of the external threat.

Despite the US embargo and relentless US subversion, Cuba remains in the upper tier of the United Nations Human Development Index because of its educational and healthcare achievements. Cuba even leads the international community in the dispatch of medical workers to fight Ebola. Cuba is celebrated globally because of its military contribution to the defeat of colonialism and apartheid in Angola and southern Africa. Now a new generation of Cuban leaders who fought in Angola is coming to power in the Havana and its diplomatic corps. For example, Rodolfo Reyes Rodríguez, Cuba’s representative to the United Nations, today walks on an artificial limb as a result of his combat in Angola.

When few thought it possible, Cuba has achieved the return of all five prisoners held for spying on right-wing Cubans who trained at Florida bases and flew harassment missions through Cuban air space. The last three to be released served hard time in American prisons, and are being welcomed as triumphant heroes on the streets of Havana. Three of the Cuban Five served in Angola as well.

Tens of thousands of Americans, from the veterans of the cane-cutting Venceremos Brigades to the steady flow of tourists insisting on their right to travel, deserve credit for steady years of educational and solidarity work and for pushing a hardy congressional bloc towards normalization.
President Obama has kept his word, despite relentless skepticism from both the left and the mainstream media. He is confounding the mainstream assumption that the Cuban right has a permanent lock on American foreign policy, especially after the Republican sweep in the November elections.

In this case, Obama’s extreme emphasis on diplomatic secrecy worked to his advantage. For over a year, leaders in both countries have conducted regular private debates and consultations, which resulted in the detailed normalization plan released in both capitals today. No one was more important on the American congressional team than Senator Patrick Leahy. Their tight discipline held until the final moment.

It is known that the private US-Cuba conversations about Alan Gross and the Cuban Five were the most difficult. The United States has never acknowledged that Gross was a de facto spy of a certain type, having traveled five times to Havana to secretly distribute advanced communications technology to persons in Havana’s small Jewish community before he was arrested in 2009. Also problematic for American officials immersed in decades of Cold War thinking was the task of wrapping their minds around the idea that the Cuban Five were political prisoners and not terrorist threats.

Finally, when both sides had achieved an internal consensus, the project was derailed by the furious Republican-led blowback against Obama’s trade of five Taliban captives for captured American soldier Bowe Bergdahl in May 2014. Then the November elections interfered with, and threatened to indefinitely delay, the beginning of normalization. Chanukah was the last date for an announcement before the installation of the new US Congress.

Because of the anti-Cuban slant of mainstream thinking, the media will make much of the anger of the Cuban right exemplified by Senator Marco Rubio. But while it’s too early to know, it’s hard to imagine his presidential ambitions being enhanced by arguing in 2016 that Obama should have tried to overthrow the Castros. Senator Bob Menendez has been a leading Democrat trying to block the Obama initiative from his chairing position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Most Democrats will be delighted to see Menendez, who represents Cuban exiles in Union City, diminished in the Senate.

Going forward, the United States will remove Cuba from the “state terrorism” listing, which will ease the possibility of funding from the international financial system. For American citizens, permission to travel to Cuba will be significantly widened. Business and trade possibilities will increase. Starting with the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama, the American and Cuban delegations will sit at the same table. The so-called interest sections will be upgraded to formal embassies. The embargo is going to be hollowed out from within, with American tourist and investment dollars permitted to flow. With or without congressional action to lift the 1996 Helms-Burton act, the embargo is being dissolved. More than 400,000 Cuban-Americans traveled to Cuba last year alone.

And here’s a prediction: if the president has his wish, the Obama family will be seen on the streets of Havana before his term is up.


Editor’s Note: “Two Old Guys Talking” is the introduction to Tom Hayden’s forthcoming book, Listen, Yankee!, Why Cuba Matters, to be published next year by Seven Stories Press. The piece was finalized last month. The “two old guys” are the author, now 75, who first visited Cuba in 1968, and Ricardo Alarcon, now 77, former president of the Cuban National Assembly, foreign minister, and UN representative.

Friday, December 19, 2014

The United States Finally Comes To Its Senses and Renews Diplomatic Relations With Cuba

All,

Here FINALLY is some very good news for a change and President Obama is to be commended in this instance for having the political courage and just SIMPLE COMMON SENSE to finally open up diplomatic relations with Cuba after a disastrous 54 year economic and cultural embargo which was always absolutely senseless and destructive for both the U.S. and Cuba. Let's fervently hope that Congress in general will follow this rational decision by the President with legislation to formally end the ridiculous Cuban embargo once and for all...

Kofi 

 
Americas

Obama Announces U.S. and Cuba Will Resume Relations

By PETER BAKER

DEC. 17, 2014

New York Times

Obama on Change to U.S.-Cuba Relations

The president outlined the steps the United States would take to “end an outdated approach” and begin to normalize relations with Cuba. Video by AP on Publish Date December 17, 2014. Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, President Obama announced on Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.

Related Coverage:
Cuba Action Is Obama’s Latest Step Away From 6 Years of Caution
DEC. 17, 2014

News Analysis: In U.S.-Cuba Embrace, Rusty Gears of Cold War Diplomacy Finally Move
DEC. 17, 2014

The American Prisoner Alan Gross and Cuban-American Relations
DEC. 17, 2014

Taking Cuba Off the Blacklist Leaves Only North Korea as Cold War Vestige
DEC. 17, 2014

Pope Francis Is Credited With a Crucial Role in U.S.-Cuba Agreement
DEC. 17, 2014

U.S. Calls on Cuba to Free American Held Since 2009 as Spy
DEC. 3, 2014

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”

The surprise announcement represented a dramatic turning point in more than five decades of hostility born in the depths of the Cold War and yet frozen in time long after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Once a geopolitical flash point in a global struggle of ideology and power, Cuba obsessed American leaders of a different era, who sponsored covert schemes like the failed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 aimed at toppling Fidel Castro, the charismatic revolutionary leader. A Soviet move to station nuclear missiles in Cuba led to a 13-day showdown in 1962 and the most perilous moment of the nuclear era.

In more recent years, the Cuban-American relationship faded in significance yet remained a thorn in the side of multiple presidents who waited for Mr. Castro’s demise and experienced false hope when he passed power to his brother, Raúl. Even today, Cuba remains a powerful touchstone in American politics, and critics characterized Mr. Obama’s diplomatic thaw as appeasement of the hemisphere’s leading dictatorship.

Mr. Obama has long expressed hope of transforming relations with the island nation, an aspiration that remained untenable as long as Cuba held Alan P. Gross, the American government contractor arrested in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison. In agreeing to free him, Cuba cleared the way for Mr. Obama to take a political risk with the last national election of his presidency behind him.

Mr. Gross traveled on an American government plane back to the United States late Wednesday morning, and the United States sent back three Cuban spies who had been in an American prison since 2001. American officials said the Cuban spies were swapped for a United States intelligence agent who had been in a Cuban prison for nearly 20 years, and said Mr. Gross was not technically part of the swap, but was released separately on “humanitarian grounds.”

In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the president called for an “honest and serious debate about lifting” it, which would require an act of Congress.

“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”

Addressing critics of his new approach, he said he shares their commitment to freedom. “The question is how we uphold that commitment,” he said. “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.”

Mr. Castro spoke simultaneously on Cuban television, taking to the airwaves with no introduction and announcing that he had spoken by telephone with Mr. Obama.

“We have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations,” he announced, emphasizing the release of the three Cubans. “President Obama’s decision deserves the respect and acknowledgment of our people.”

Only afterward did he mention the reopening of diplomatic relations. “This in no way means that the heart of the matter has been resolved,” he said. “The economic, commercial and financial blockade, which causes enormous human and economic damages to our country, must cease.” But, he added, “the progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems.”

Mr. Castro acknowledged that Mr. Obama was easing the blockade through his executive authority and called on the United States government to go further to “remove the obstacles that impede or restrict the links between our peoples, the families and the citizens of both our countries.”

Mr. Gross, accompanied by his wife, Judy, and three members of Congress, landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington shortly before noon. His sister, Bonnie Rubinstein, was “beyond ecstatic” at the news, according to her husband, Harold. “We are extremely grateful that he’s on his way home,” Mr. Rubinstein said by telephone from Dallas. “It’s been a long ordeal.”

Secretary of State John Kerry landed at Andrews shortly afterward and met with Mr. Gross, his wife, other members of his family and his lawyer, Scott Gilbert. While the meeting was unplanned, a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said it gave Mr. Kerry a chance to “express his overwhelming happiness that Alan Gross is now free and reunited with his family on American soil.”

At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Gross said he supported Mr. Obama’s move toward normalizing relations with Cuba, adding that his own ordeal and the injustice with which Cuban people have been treated were “a consequence of two governments’ mutually belligerent policies.”

“Five and a half decades of history show us that such belligerence inhibits better judgment,” Mr. Gross said. “Two wrongs never make a right. This is a game-changer, which I fully support.”

Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and a son of Cuban immigrants who may run for president in 2016, denounced the new policy as “another concession to a tyranny” and a sign that Mr. Obama’s administration is “willfully ignorant of the way the world truly works.”

“This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people,” Mr. Rubio said. “All this is going to do is give the Castro regime, which controls every aspect of Cuban life, the opportunity to manipulate these changes to perpetuate itself in power.”

How America’s Relationship With Cuba Will Change

Which travel and trade restrictions will be eased or eliminated.

OPEN Graphic

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was also sharply critical. “Let’s be clear, this was not a ‘humanitarian’ act by the Castro regime. It was a swap of convicted spies for an innocent American,” Mr. Menendez said in a written statement. “President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government.”

Mr. Obama spoke with Mr. Castro by telephone on Tuesday to finalize the agreement in a call that lasted more than 45 minutes, the first direct  contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 50 years, American officials said.

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were severed in January 1961 after the rise of Fidel Castro and his Communist government. Mr. Obama has instructed Mr. Kerry to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba about re-establishing diplomatic relations and to begin the process of removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism, which it has been on since 1982, the White House said.

Officials said they would re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between the two governments within months. Mr. Obama will send an assistant secretary of state to Havana next month for talks on Cuban-American migration and will attend a Summit of the Americas meeting along with Mr. Castro. The United States will begin working with Cuba on issues like counternarcotics, environmental protection and human trafficking.

The United States will also ease travel restrictions across all 12 categories currently envisioned under limited circumstances in American law, including family visits, official visits, journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, and public performances, officials said. Ordinary tourism, however, will remain prohibited.

Mr. Obama will also allow greater banking ties, making it possible to use debit cards in Cuba, and raise the level of remittances allowed to be sent to Cuban nationals to $2,000 every three months from the current limit of $500. Intermediaries forwarding remittances will no longer require a specific license from the government.American travelers will also be allowed to import up to $400 worth of goods from Cuba, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products.

The Vatican hailed the agreement. “The Holy Father wishes to express his warm congratulations for the historic decision taken by the governments of the United States of America and Cuba to establish diplomatic relations, with the aim of overcoming, in the interest of the citizens of both countries, the difficulties which have marked their recent history,” it said in a statement.

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Jim Steinberg

16 minutes ago
It's over, Marco. We've moved on.

Einstein

16 minutes ago
Moving in the right direction President Obama!People want to live in peace and harmony. Also, we would all benefit to learn how Cuban...

Arthur Paone

19 minutes ago
God, what a surprise. Something rational happening!

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Mr. Gross’s health has been failing. He reportedly lost more than 100 pounds in prison and is losing vision in his right eye. He went on a nine-day hunger strike in April. After turning 65 in May, he told relatives that he might try to kill himself if not released soon.

Play Video|0:52

Obama on Cuba’s Release of Alan Gross

President Obama discussed the release of the contractor, Alan P. Gross, who had been held in Cuba for five years, as well as the release of an intelligence agent held for nearly 20 years.

Three members of Congress were on the plane that picked up Mr. Gross in Cuba on Wednesday and accompanied him back to the United States, officials said: Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

Mr. Gross was in Cuba to deliver satellite telephone equipment that was capable of cloaking connections to the Internet when he was arrested in 2009. The Cuban authorities, who tightly control access to the Internet in their country, initially said he was a spy, and a court there convicted him of bringing in the devices without a permit as part of a subversive plot to “destroy the revolution.”

Mr. Gross’s case drew increasing attention as his health deteriorated. He grew despondent and talked of suicide, and his wife, Judy Gross, and other supporters made urgent pleas for his release, but off-and-on diplomatic talks seemed to go nowhere.

Cuba has often raised the case of three of its spies serving federal prison time in Florida, saying they had been prosecuted unjustly and urging that they be released on humanitarian grounds. State Department officials insisted that the cases were not comparable and that Mr. Gross was not an intelligence agent.

The three Cuban agents were part of the Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network, in Florida along with two other Cuban agents. Mr. Obama used his clemency power to commute their sentences, and they were flown to Cuba by the United States Marshals Service, according to the Justice Department.

The unnamed United States intelligence agent traded for them returned to American soil on Wednesday as well. That agent, described by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence only as “a Cuban individual,” has been imprisoned in Cuba for nearly two decades.

Officials said he was instrumental in identifying the Cuban agents who were sent back on Wednesday. Separately, he also provided information that led to the conviction of Ana Belén Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst; Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official; and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers.

“In light of his sacrifice on behalf of the United States, securing his release from prison after 20 years — in a swap for three of the Cuban spies he helped put behind bars — is fitting closure to this Cold War chapter of U.S.-Cuban relations,” the intelligence director’s office said in a statement.

Mr. Gross worked for Development Alternatives, of Bethesda, Md., and had traveled to more than 50 countries as an international development worker. The company had a $6 million contract with the United States Agency for International Development to distribute equipment that could get around Cuba’s Internet blockade, and Mr. Gross had made four previous trips to Cuba in 2009.

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the former New Mexico governor and cabinet secretary Bill Richardson and several members of Congress appealed for Mr. Gross’s release, along with Jewish advocacy groups in the United States.

After visiting Mr. Gross in November, Mr. Flake, a longtime advocate of loosening the 50-year-old American trade embargo with Cuba, said he was optimistic that the case would be resolved.

American lawmakers who have drawn attention to Mr. Gross’s case celebrated his departure from Cuba. “Today, news of Alan’s release brings great relief to his loved ones and to every American who has called for his freedom,” said Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas. “I admire Alan’s strength and that of his wife Judy, who has worked tirelessly for years to free Alan and reunite her family.”

The American government has spent $264 million over the last 18 years, much of it through the development agency, in an effort to spur democratic change in Cuba. The agency said in November that it would cease the kinds of operations that Mr. Gross was involved in when he was arrested, as well as those, disclosed by The Associated Press, that allowed a contractor to set up a Twitter-like social network that hid its ties to the United States government.

Reporting was contributed by Michael R. Gordon and Julie Hirschfeld Davis from Washington, David Gonzalez from New York and Randal C. Archibold from Mexico City.


BREAKING NEWS    Wednesday, December 17, 2014

U.S. to Restore Full Diplomatic Relations With Cuba, Officials Say


The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, American officials said Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final culminating meeting at the Vatican, President Obama and President Raul Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the island nation just 90 minutes off the American coast.

The contractor, Alan Gross, boarded an American government plane bound for the United States on Wednesday morning and the United States sent back three Cuban spies who have been in an American prison since 1981. American officials said the Cuban spies were swapped for a United States intelligence agent who has been in a Cuban prison for nearly 20 years and said Mr. Gross was not technically part of the swap but released separately on “humanitarian grounds.”

In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the administration signaled that it would welcome a move by Congress to ease or lift it should lawmakers choose to.

“Today, the United States is taking historic steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people,” the White House said in a written statement.

READ MORE »

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/americas/us-cuba-relations.html?emc=edit_na_20141217


BREAKING NEWS  Wednesday, December 17, 2014 
10:06 AM EST

U.S. and Cuba to Start Talks on Normalizing Relations, Officials Say

The United States and Cuba will start talks on normalizing full diplomatic relations after decades of estrangement, American officials confirmed on Wednesday.

The revelation came as the Cuban government, citing “humanitarian grounds,” on Wednesday released an American contractor it had held in captivity for five years, a senior State Department official said. The step paved the way for a potential thaw in decades of tense relations with the United States.

The contractor, Alan P. Gross, boarded an American government plane and was on his way back to the United States, officials said.
President Obama plans to speak publicly on the case at noon Eastern time, the official said. News agencies reported that President Raúl Castro of Cuba also would speak at noon about relations with the United States.

American officials confirmed that three Cubans held by the United States were also being released. But the officials insisted that this was not a prisoner swap for Mr. Gross but was instead being treated as a separate arrangement.

READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/americas/cuba-releases-alan-gross-american-it-accused-of-spying.html?emc=edit_na_20141217


BREAKING NEWS    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 9:13 AM EST

Cuba Frees American Prisoner, U.S. Official Says

The Cuban government released the American contractor Alan Gross on “humanitarian grounds” on Wednesday after five years of captivity, an American government official said, paving the way for a potential thaw in decades of tense relations with the United States.

Mr. Gross boarded an American government plane and was en route back to the United States, according to an American government official who declined to be named pending further developments. President Obama plans to speak publicly on the case at noon, the official said.

READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/americas/cuba-releases-alan-gross-american-it-accused-of-spying.html?emc=edit_na_20141217

Obama Calls Cuba Embargo a Failure

President Obama said from the White House that 50 years of isolating Cuba has not worked and it is time for a new approach.

“This policy has been rooted in the best of intentions,” Mr. Obama said. “It has had little effect.”

READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=edit_na_20141217

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

National Demonstrations Against the Racist Hegemony Of Police Brutality and Murder of African American Citizens in the United States Today

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/13/millions-march-nyc_n_6320348.html

 
Tens Of Thousands March On NYPD Headquarters To Protest Police Killings 
by Matt Sledge and Braden Goyette



Tens of thousands of protesters streamed out of New York City's Washington Square Park on Saturday to protest the killings of unarmed black people by police officers, as part of the "Millions March NYC."

The crowd began to wind its way through Manhattan. A large labor union contingent was present, including members of the Communications Workers of America wearing red shirts and AFL-CIO supporters waving blue signs.

In contrast to other marches over the past weeks, this large, orderly demonstration took place during the day. A number of families with children took part, and demonstrators followed a pre-planned route. The march made its way uptown to Herald Square, then looped back downtown, with thunderous chants of "Hands up! Don't shoot!" and "Justice! Now!" echoing down Broadway. The demonstration culminated at One Police Plaza, the New York City Police Department's Lower Manhattan headquarters.

Organizers estimated that 30,000 demonstrators participated in the march. The NYPD told The Huffington Post that, as of the official end of the march, no arrests had been made.

Protesters held up 8 panels depicting Eric Garner's eyes, created by an artist known as JR. "The eyes were chosen as the most important part of the face," said Tony Herbas of Bushwick, an assistant to the artist.

garner eyes

Ron Davis, whose son Jordan was shot dead by a man in Florida after an argument over loud music, was at the head of the march. 

"We have to make everybody accountable," Davis told HuffPost. "You can’t continue to see videos of chokeholds, videos of kids getting shot in the back, and say it’s all right. We have to make sure we have an independent investigator investigate these crimes that police carry out."

Michael Dunn, the man who killed Jordan, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in October. Davis said Saturday that Dunn's conviction proves it's possible that justice can be served in racially charged cases. 

"We ended up getting a historic movement in Jacksonville," Davis said. "We had an almost all-white jury, with seven white men, convict a white man for shooting down an unarmed boy of color."

black lives matter

Also at the front of the march were New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and New York state Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron.

Matthew Brown, a 19-year-old who is African-American and Hispanic, marched down Broadway with his mother, aunt and other family members.

"I'm trying to support a movement that really needs young people like myself," said Brown. "I'm here to speak for Mike Brown."

The teenager said part of his motivation for making the trek from West Orange, New Jersey, with his family was his own personal experience. He's encountered racist verbal abuse from police in Jersey City, he said, who have called him "spic" and monkey."

Citing the cases of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, Brown said part of the reason he wanted to speak out was because of the way police represent encounters with African-Americans. "I just see so many lies after lies."
He also attended the People's Climate March in September. But this march felt more intense to him. "This is one that's really affecting people on a deep, emotional level," Brown said.

Krystal Martinez, a 23-year-old schoolteacher, said she attended the march to send a simple message: "I don't want my students' names chanted at any of these events."

krystal martinez
Because she teaches at a charter school that serves students from Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, Martinez said, she was painfully aware of the challenges black youth face in interactions with police.

Martinez, a Harlem resident, pointed to a sign held by a colleague with a quote from a 13-year-old girl who had been stopped by police: "The first time I was stopped and frisked I was so scared I didn't leave my house for a week."
"Eighty-five percent of my students are black and this is their lives," Martinez said, emphasizing that she spoke for herself and not her school. "I'm out here because of my kids."

Some protesters arrived with concrete policy proposals. Marcia Dupree, a homecare supervisor, came bearing a sign that read, "We must change the law ... no grand jury!!!"
"The root of the problem," Dupree said, was the closeness between grand juries and police. In the wake of two grand juries' decisions not to indict officers in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths, the idea of abolishing the institution has gotten a lot of attention from both the media and policymakers, including the chairman of Missouri's Legislative Black Caucus.

Dupree added that she'd never really considered herself much of an activist before. Serving on the board of her local library in Mount Vernon, New York, was "as political as I got." But she said she has been moved to protest out of concern for her 13-year-old daughter -- who was marching in crutches by her side -- and her 21-year-old son.
"I feel like I need to stand up," said Dupree. "It could be my son."

marcia dupree
At times, the march blurred surreally with Santacon -- the sloshy daytime celebration of Christmas (and drinking) that New Yorkers hate on every year.

A number of Santacon participants joined the march. Others were less enthusiastic. "I love cops, seriously," one man in a Santa cap told an impassive officer. "I hate these people." Then he walked off with his fellow revelers.

santa
Saturday's day of action came in response to two separate grand jury decisions not to indict police officers for killing unarmed black men. On Nov. 24, a St. Louis County grand jury voted not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Less than two weeks later, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Eric Garner by putting him in a chokehold.

Brown's death on Aug. 9 triggered months of protests in Ferguson against police killings -- protests that have since spread nationwide. 

One group of marchers turned into a street protest choir, singing, "We're not gonna stop, until people are free."
Beneva Davies, a 23-year-old Harlem resident who lent her voice to the group, said the most singing she usually does is in the shower.

"It's not really about your voice," Davies said. "It's about your voice, right?"

Davies's family hails from Sierra Leone and Ghana, and she grew up in Massachusetts. Sometimes, she says, she sees a "disconnect" between recent African immigrants and the African-American descendants of slaves.

But she tries to push back against that disconnect, she said, because "at end of the day it's what you're seen as."

Davies saw the march as her chance to answer the question of what she would have done if she had been alive during the civil rights protests led by Martin Luther King Jr.

After hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow and more, Davies said, "People continue to get killed. ... It's frustrating. We have to be here so people can see it."
Sebastian Murdock contributed reporting.

This story has been updated.
  •  
    John Minchillo/AP
    Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
  • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
    Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
  •  
    John Minchillo/AP
    Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
  • wilfish99/Instagram
    Thousands march in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
  • John Minchillo/AP
    Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
  • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
    Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
  • raphaelangenscheidt/Instagram
    Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
  • msjoannaj / Instagram
    Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014. 
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.

    •  Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • christesc/Instagram
      Thousands march in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • John Minchillo/AP
      Demonstrators march in New York, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, during the Justice for All rally and march. In the past three weeks, grand juries have decided not to indict officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The decisions have unleashed demonstrations and questions about police conduct and whether local prosecutors are the best choice for investigating police. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
    • Carly Schwartz/Huffington Post
      Thousands march on Broadway in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • brentaxthelm/Instagram
      Protesters make their way up fifth avenue in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • andysimpzon/Instagram
      Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • jesslynyovita / Instagram
      Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Jnobianch / Twitter
      Thousands march along 5th Ave. in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
    • Emily Kassie/Huffington Post
      Thousands gather in Washington Square park in New York City on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-black-men-suits-protest-eric-garner-20141215-story.html

Black men in business suits protest alleged police misconduct
By Samantha Masunaga
December 15, 2014
Los Angeles Times


"...Maddox said the vigil, called "Suits in Solidarity," grew out of a desire to show solidarity with young people who protested across the country, but in a different way. Since grand juries declined to indict white officers for incidents in which unarmed black men – Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – protests have broken out across the country. In some cases, protests have grown violent, and almost all have been loud, with marchers in some cases blocking streets and, in L.A., freeways. On Monday, protesters chained themselves to the Oakland Police Department headquarters."

The vigil drew men from all walks of life, including pastors, engineers, business owners and lawyers. As speakers talked about their experiences with the police, the men held signs saying, "Black lives matter."

"In our society, African American men are demonized -- we are seen as a threat," said Virgil Roberts, a lawyer. "It's time for you in America to see us as Americans and contributors to society."

The men started the 30-minute vigil with a moment of silence and ended with a moment of silence after Ridley-Thomas' speech. Then the men put their signs down, and stood silently for 30 seconds with their hands up.

 
About 50 African American men, all dressed in dark suits, gathered in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Monday for a silent vigil to show support for Eric Garner and other alleged victims of police misconduct.

The noontime demonstration, which was anchored by a speech by L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, was intended to show that police target not only youth in low-income neighborhoods, said Kerman Maddox, managing partner at Dakota Communications and the organizer of the vigil.


"The larger community doesn't know how common it is for African American men to be stopped and harassed," he said during the event.

Related:
45 people arrested in Bay Area protests against police killings

Maddox said the vigil, called "Suits in Solidarity," grew out of a desire to show solidarity with young people who protested across the country, but in a different way. Since grand juries declined to indict white officers for incidents in which unarmed black men – Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – protests have broken out across the country. In some cases, protests have grown violent, and almost all have been loud, with marchers in some cases blocking streets and, in L.A., freeways. On Monday, protesters chained themselves to the Oakland Police Department headquarters.

Monday’s event on Spring Street in downtown L.A. was a relatively quiet, calm affair. Many of the men greeted each other with hugs and handshakes.

The vigil drew men from all walks of life, including pastors, engineers, business owners and lawyers. As speakers talked about their experiences with the police, the men held signs saying, "Black lives matter."

"In our society, African American men are demonized -- we are seen as a threat," said Virgil Roberts, a lawyer. "It's time for you in America to see us as Americans and contributors to society."

The men started the 30-minute vigil with a moment of silence and ended with a moment of silence after Ridley-Thomas' speech. Then the men put their signs down, and stood silently for 30 seconds with their hands up.

For more news, follow @smasunaga.

Further Evidence of The Ominous, Pathological, and Deadly Power of the Doctrine & Practice of White Supremacy in the United Hates Today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/sunday-review/dana-canedy-the-talk-after-ferguson-a-shaded-conversation-about-race.html


Sunday Review | Dispatch

The Talk: After Ferguson, a Shaded Conversation About Race

By DANA CANEDY
DEC. 13, 2014
New York Times

 
LIKE so many African-American parents, I had rehearsed “the talk,” that nausea-inducing discussion I needed to have with my son about how to conduct himself in the presence of the police. I was prepared for his questions, except for one.

“Can I just pretend I’m white?”

Jordan was born to African-American parents, but recessive genes being what they are, he has very fair skin and pale blue eyes. I am caramel brown, and since his birth eight years ago people have mistaken me for his nanny.

When I asked why he would want to “pass” for white, I struggled with how to respond to his answer.

“Because it’s safer,” Jordan replied. “They won’t hurt me.”

That recent gray day, not long after grand juries failed to indict the police officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, I had steadied myself to lay out the rules: Always address police officers as “sir” or “ma’am.” Do not make any sudden moves, even to reach for identification. Do not raise your voice, resist or run.

But now I was taken aback.

Jordan’s father and I never had a chance to discuss when we would give him the talk, or what we would say. Our baby was just 6 months old when his dad, a decorated Army soldier, was killed in combat in Iraq. So the timing and the context of the talk were left to me.

I had tried hard to delay it, and make sure he wouldn’t know the names Michael Brown or Eric Garner or Tamir Rice.

In the days leading up to the conversation, I asked an African-American male colleague if he thought it was too soon. When did he tell his own boys?

“Before they were no longer seen as cute,” he said, making me wince.

I hadn’t fully processed that someday my son would be seen as suspect instead of sweet. So I told him, and then Jordan asked if it was rare for the police to hurt black people. I said that, just like his father when he wore his military uniform, most police officers are dedicated to protecting us. But, no, I added, it is unfortunately not uncommon.

“Then I don’t want to be black anymore,” Jordan declared.

He asked if I was crying. I dabbed at my eyes and searched my mind for what to say.

“Son, your father was an incredible African-American man,” I told him. “And you are an amazing boy who is going to grow into just such a man. Please be proud of that.”

“Yes,” he responded emphatically, “but can’t I just pretend to be white?”


The message that Jordan’s appearance affords him the option to check “other” on the race card comes at him constantly. After his second-grade class created self-portraits last year, I noticed that his was the only one not hanging on the classroom wall. His teacher explained that his portrait was “a work in progress.” The brown crayon he had used to color in his face was several shades too dark, she thought, and so she wanted him to “lighten it up” to more accurately reflect his complexion.

The author with her son and his father. Credit Courtesy of Dana Canedy

It is not just the overt signals that have convinced Jordan that he can choose to blend in to a white world. It is also that we live a life of relative affluence. I am a journalist and author whose inner circle includes prominent black writers, television anchors and doctors. We live in a high-rise in Manhattan with a doorman and round-the-clock security. Jordan attends an elite private school and an exclusive summer camp.

A white friend calls him “the boy who lives in the sky” because of the vast city view from the nine-foot windows in his bedroom. “He lives in a bubble and is always with responsible adults,” she said recently, trying to assure me that our status makes him safer than many black boys.

That is true, mostly. And if my parenting pays off, I will be able to minimize his contact with the police. He will be law-abiding. He will respect authority. He’ll understand the perception of black boys wearing hoodies or sagging pants. But will it be enough?

Just last month a video went viral that showed a black man in Pontiac, Mich., being questioned by a sheriff’s deputy because someone reported feeling nervous after seeing him walking in the cold with his hands in his pockets. So as much as I want to believe that our upper-middle-class status will protect my son from many of society’s social ills, it could not provide him the white privilege he seeks.

Nor would “passing” protect Jordan entirely, for the internal damage from living that lie would surely be as painful as any blow from a police baton. To deny his blackness would be to deny me. It would be to deny our enslaved ancestors who were strong enough to endure that voyage. It would mean rejecting the reflection he sees every time he looks in a mirror.

For at least a little while longer, Jordan is too young to understand any of this. He does not know the racial indignity of having jobs and promotions denied or delayed, does not know the humiliation of being stopped and frisked. He has never heard the mantra “I can’t breathe.”

I know that our talk was just the start of a conversation that will go deeper as he moves into his teen years in a post-Obama America. My fervent hope is that, by then, I will have found a way to help him embrace the privilege of being black.

Dana Canedy is a senior editor at The New York Times and the author of the memoir “A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor.”

Grieving Mothers: My Son Would Still Be Alive If He Were White
www.huffingtonpost.com


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/12/mother-deceased-unarmed-black-men_n_6318494.html

 
The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice appeared together for the first time on CNN.

In an interview with Anderson Cooper on Friday, the mothers of the four deceased, unarmed African American males explained that if their sons were white, they would still be alive.

"I think absolutely my son's race and the color of his skin had a lot to do with why he was shot and killed," said Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother.

Eric Garner's mother, Gwen Carr said:

"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing -- even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day -- they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day... I believe that 100 percent."

The mothers also told Cooper that white people don't quite understand what communities of color are going through, partly because they don't have to.

Fulton:

"It's not happening to them, so they don't quite get it... They don't quite understand. They think that it's a small group of African-Americans that's complaining... The people say that all the time: 'What are they complaining about now? What are they protesting about now?

Until it happens to them and in their family then they'll understand the walk. They don't understand what we're going through. They don't understand the life and they don't understand what we're fighting against. I don't even think the government quite gets it."

Martin died in 2012 in Florida when neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman shot him. Martin was seventeen years old. Zimmerman was acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter.

Brown died in Ferguson, Mo. in an altercation with police officer Darren Wilson in August. A grand jury voted not to indict Wilson in November.

In July, Garner died after NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold, a death the medical examiner concluded was a homicide. The incident was recorded on video. A grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo, which sparked a new wave of protests inspired by Garner's last words, "I can't breathe."

12-year-old Tamir Rice was at a Cleveland park when a police car pulled up and shot him last month. His death was ruled a homicide according to a Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's autopsy report.

Grieving Mothers: My Son Would Still Be Alive If He Were White:  www.huffingtonpost.com

Author of ‘Broken Windows’ Policing Defends His Theory
www.nytimes.com


"Broken Windows Policing' Denounced--Various publications

Author of ‘Broken Windows’ Policing Defends His Theory--New York Times

Controversy over the style of policing is reverberating again after a Staten Island man died of a chokehold while being arrested for illegally selling cigarettes.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/nyregion/author-of-broken-windows-policing-defends-his-theory.html?mwrsm=Email

 
It’s Time to End ‘Broken Windows’ Policing | The Nation:

http://m.thenation.com/article/177842-its-time-end-broken-windows-policing

Broken windows policing deaths: Racism in chokeholds, arrests, and convictions:


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/broken_windows_policing_deaths_racism_in_chokeholds_arrests_and_convictions.html
 

March In Washington Draws Thousands Of Protesters Demanding Justice For All
12/13/2014
Huffington Post

 
At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, hundreds of people began to gather at the Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. By noon, the crowd had swelled to thousands. The protesters began marching through the nation's capital to call for justice and decry racial discrimination in light of recent deaths of black men at the hands of the police.

The crowd rallied through the city demanding "justice for all," the slogan that lent the protest its name. The Justice For All march was a response to recent decisions by two separate grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York, which declined to indict the white police officers responsible for the deaths of, respectively, 18-year-old Michael Brown and 43-year-old Eric Garner.

The families of police shooting victims, including relatives of Brown, Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley and John Crawford, led the march.

The demonstration was organized by the National Action Network, a civil rights organization headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton joined the families as they marched through Washington Saturday.

"We are not anti-police; we are anti-police-brutality," Sharpton told protesters. "And today we challenge Congress to follow in the president's footsteps and take legislative action to protect us, the citizens."

"Do not be silent. Do not be complacent. Do not continue to live with police misconduct and violence as somehow acceptable," Sharpton urged earlier this week in a piece he wrote for The Huffington Post.

Trevon Ferguson, a 14-year-old from Long Beach, New York, said he had traveled about five hours to attend the march in D.C., and planned to head back with his family this afternoon. He said he has never had a problem with police officers, but constantly fears them.

“Sometimes I feel like, you never know, I might be the next Trayvon Martin or the next Eric Garner. So who’s to say that a cop wouldn’t come and just shoot me and leave me in the street?” Ferguson told HuffPost. “So I’m here to make sure that me and my family are treated equally, just as any white boy or girl. Dr. King believed in equality, so I’m here for equality.”

The mothers of Rice, Garner, Brown and Trayvon Martin, a black teenager who was shot in 2012 by a neighborhood watch volunteer, appeared together in public for the first time Friday night. In a joint interview on CNN, the women spoke out against racial discrimination and argued that their sons might not have died if they had been white.

"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing -- even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day -- they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day ... I believe that 100 percent," Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

The deaths of these black men have become part of a narrative that many believe is all too common in the United States.

"We are together. We are united. We are standing. And we are going to fight this together," Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother, told the crowd before she began to lead the march. "You guys mean the world to us."

Garner's mother also approached the podium and praised the diversity of the crowd.

"Look at the masses," she said. "Black, white, all races, all religions ... We need to stand like this at all times."

In recent weeks, protesters around the country have participated in demonstrations to decry racial injustice and police brutality.

Dion Anderson, a 42-year-old from Washington, D.C., said he “felt obligated” to come to the event because of his own negative experiences with police officers, especially growing up.

"When I was eight years old, we were at the basketball court playing basketball and a Prince George’s County police officer -- I’m tearing up right now thinking about it -- just came on the basketball court and flattened [the ball], and just left. For no reason. So that’s why I’m obligated to come down,” Anderson said. “I even got scars on the back of my head from Prince George’s County Police Department … So police brutality has been rampant in my life.”

Many of the signs and chants from protests around the country have used the slogan that has become synonymous with the movement: "Black lives matter."

That same message was echoed by protesters who participated in the Justice For All march on Saturday. Here are some powerful images:

The slideshow below will be updated with images throughout the day.