Friday, May 29, 2009

SILENCE OF THE DAMNED

SILENCE OF THE DAMNED

by Carol Taylor R.N.

NYPD BLUE LIES:
The Shocking True Story of
Racism, Corruption, Cover-Ups and Murder In The NYPD
Charles Castro
300 pages - ISBN#10:0-9800582-6-0
Copyright 2008 Charles Castro
Publisher: Arba Books, Inc.

Well, well, well. Will wonders never cease? After more than two decades of New York City community-based organizations' (herein remaining nameless to conserve space) fighting to get the NYPD to racismtest.org its officers for their levels of color-discrimination (which is corruption) (ref: quote #1)* - finally, there's documented proof of what their various Administrators have obdurately denied the existence of:

NYPD Blue Lies: The Shocking True Story of Racism, Corruption, Cover-Ups and Murder in the NYPD is a literary 'Sting Operation,' and if Police Commissioners Kelly, Bratton, Safir and others including former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani ( ref:quote #2) don't sue for slander and libel, this must-read book will certainly stand as stark testimony - along with that of ex-cop Frank Serpico and The Mollen Commission - to an absolutely untenable beehive of untreated racism/colorism at #1 Police Plaza NYC.

Moreover, the fact, that ex-Police Officer Castro was part of a successful $27 million Class Action against the NYPD substantiating beyond denial claims of color and ethnic discrimination by many of 'New York's Finest,' should firmly shut up any naysayers trying to let the NYPD off the hook.

The book's easy-reading pages cry out for holding NYPD perpetrators/perpetuators accountable and if the New York City Council is really worth their salt, they'll use NYPD BLUE LIES as documentation to cause legislation to be passed installing an Independent Investigator (ref: quote#3) to keep a continuous watch over the NYPD and
to force the NYC Police Force to have every single officer (including the Administration) tested for their responses to differences in color and culture with a continuing program: (Ref: www.racismtest.org - posted on www.Discussrace.com ) and where indicated, referred to Ethnotherapeutic Counseling until they can think straight about color!

Reading about NYPD vicious retaliation, one wonders where Charles Castro gets the guts to reveal the odious undersides of a 'law enforcement' organization which most citizens believe is there 'to protect' them and their families. But, how can there be such protection when NYPD untreated racism/colorism infects not only the interaction of the police officers inside but their actions outside? NYPD BLUE LIES effectively describes the killings-by-cops of unarmed Black males (ref: quote#4) like Patrick Dorismond, Anthony Baez, Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo, among too many others to sadly list here.

NYPD BLUE LIES should be read by anyone living and visiting NYC - and definitely should be on the mandated Reading List for every student in New York's schools and universities.

Yes, NYPD BLUE LIES is terrifying, but even more terrifying would be if the Citizenry do not utilize Castro's vital information to deal effectively with the cancerous corruption extant and rotting the NYPD from within.

For this literary coup, Charles Castro should be named "MAN OF THE YEAR." He's laid out a huge tray of NYPD evil: untreated racism/colorism, thievery, thuggery, malignant mis-Administration, murder, corruption, cover-ups, sex, stress and retaliation: the TV Series and movie should be an effin' riot!

*Qunitessential Quotes:

#1. p293 "Sure they called us "niggers" and "spics;" sure they treated us like crap."

#2. p153 "...Rudy Giuliani and the NYPD spent most of their time and money working
on destroying the lives of Black and Hispanic police officers."

#3. p296 (not until we)"... push the lazy, fat, gutless, hypocritical politicians to get up off their asses will we succeed in getting a badly needed outside independ-
ent monitor to oversee the rotting NYPD."

#4. p296 "...the last 40 unarmed people killed at the hands of the NYPD have been
people of color."

Thursday, May 7, 2009

A HARD WOE TO HOE:

A HARD WOE TO HOE:
White Mens' Burden

Early one morning my Daughter told me about a CNN news item describing a ditsy card a U.S.A. Mayor, Dean Gross (aptly named) had sent to President Obama, with rows of watermelon in front of the White House, with a caption predicting 'no more egg hunts on the White House lawn.' Gross later denied knowing that this was racist/colorist stereotyping. (And I'm the Tooth Fairy!)

Right after the 'anger-thunk!' hit my brain in the "You-always-gotta'-watch-out-for-them-colorists' section, I started remembering my Dad's reaction as he was planting vegetables in our upstate New York farm garden, to the remark by a white man passing by in his horse-driven cart, "What 'chu' plantin' there, boy, watermelon?"

My Mother, who just happened to hear what we conscious Blackfolk know is a stereotypical slur, rushed out of the house to save the hapless white man from the sure pummeling Dad was about to deliver to him.

As I thought about the Gross slur, I began to imagine, in these times of heightened colorism concerns - not decreased certainly by the entrance of those beautous Obamas into the White House - what it would mean to be a white male in America today:

1. If I were as color-sick as the white man who sent the watermelon post card to Obama or the white man who asked Dad if he were planting watermelons, my actions would indicate a dysfunctional level of untreated racism/colorism and would illustrate my inordinate fear - not buried too deeply - of the genetic annhilation of people unfortunate enough to've been 'rinsed out' by nature's evolution/climate to the point of wearing no observable skin melanin.(Hence our unhealthy pursuits of 'tans' at the beaches, risking skin cancer)

2. I'd remember (not frequently) the accounts of Black males bing dragged to death behind Texas trucks; other lynchings of Blacks; the assassinations of Medgar Evers & Martin Luther King, Jr.; the killings of those little Black girls in that Birmingham church; the continuing slaughters by cops of Black males of any age or spoken language, among other outrages against Blackfolk and know that some day, somehow, somewhere, some time, Blacks would stop being societys' Milktoasts, stand up collectively for themselves and come for retribution and Reparations against people looking like me (white & male);

3. I'd be particularly ansty as I read through the incredibly savvy list of whiteskin unearned privileges put together by Dr. Peggy MacIntosh in her "Paper 189") from Wellesley College; (Google her name and be sorely shocked by the quality and quantity of her listings);

4. In my eurocentric societally-conditioned-by-our-racist/colorist-miseducating-U.S.A. 'Eduucation' System, I'd be looking askance and with undisguised opprobrium and fear at local Blacks, Hispanics of color, brown-skinned Muslims and immigrants of color who, I've been mistakenly taught, are taking jobs away from white folk like me, and

5. I'd be walkng around in the equally-mistaken belief that I'm better than all of the above-mentioned 'coloreds' in #4 and therefore utterly confused whenever I saw or heard about any one of them making more money than I did. (And I'd hate Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey and be glad O.J. Simpson, Little Kim and Michael Vicks were finally jailed).

Well, for the first time in all of my own Black 77 year life, I was able to contemplate what it must feel like to be in the skin of a white male here in the year 2009, smack dab in the midst of Black History month (which those white male Congressmen are now trying to eradicate)

I could - just barely - feel sorry for those white males (especially if in their own interests they would log on to www.discussrace.com - contribute their honest opinions no matter how hoary -take and share the www.racismtest.org and where they were found dysfunctional in their responses to differences in color and culture - go forthwith into Ethnotherapeutic Counseling to help heal their inherited-through-no-fault-of-their-own colorist afflictions).

Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. Mottos: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned" "Many Colors - One Race"

ERIC THE GREAT

ERIC THE GREAT

(Open letter to those "cowards")



I think it's only right that I slaute the new, bold and brave United States of America Attorney General The Hon. Eric Holder right now, as I again enjoy the splendid sea, sand and sun in his family's beauteous island of Barbados, West Indies.

I say 'bold and brave' because of his unprecedented challenge to inhabitants in the entire U.S.A. to join with him to right the terrible wrongs of untreated racism/colorism which cowards employ to prevent people of color from enjoying full and equal equity in every arena of people activity, i.e. law, economics, education, entertainment, politicsm labor, religon, sex and war.

So, right from the 'get go' with Mr. Eric Holder in that important office, can those of us who've continually fought the good fight against the rampant color bigotry down through countless years dare to hope that finally, after decades of allowing colorist hate groups like the KKK, skinheads and other mentally ill misfits to flourish, the Government of the great U.S.A. is taking a ZERO TOLERANCE principled stand against illogical, illegal behavior and acts based on consideration of color instead of on character?

Of course, the fact that the Office of the Attorney General of the U.S.A. has behind it all of the laws in the Constitution of the land to deal effectively with colorist crime certainly increases hope for a more equitable society - especially for people of color. I've long fumed ofver the colorist hypocrisy extant in the courtrooms of the U.S.A. - by not acknowledging and correcting the inherited institutional racism/colorism within the entire society but behaving as though it doesn't affect the outcome of trials, court directors, judges, lawers, etc., have been complicit in only God knows how many wrong unfair verdicts have been rendered as they blithely carry on 'business as usual.' And this is only one, albeit important, critical arena where the infection of untreated racism/colorism s allowed to rot the fabric of this society.

All court participant should have to take the www.Racismtest.org prior to any trial - and where their responses to differences in color and culture are dysfunctional, be referred to Ethnotherapeutic Counseling until they can think straight.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright was right. If the new Attorney General Holder can effect some of his anti-colorist-bias programs, not only would the cities in the U.S.A. not have to shell out millions of
taxpayers' dollars for cops' killings of so many Black males, but fed-up folk could join with others sincerely shouting "God Bless America" instead of "God Damn Anerica!"

We'd welcome the day when the cowards no longer cower in the darkness of denial, kowtow to colorism, or bowdown to bigotry but stand together tall in righteousness and reparations, safe and secure in the sunlight of reality, able to acknowledge that ALL hueman beings share many colors, but ONE race and the same Black ancestors of Africa.

So, from the wonderfully healing sunny beaches of Barbadoes, let me send warm hopeful Best Wishes for a continuingly productive tenure to the Hon.. U.S.A. Attorney General, the bold and brave Barbadian descendant, The Hon. Eric Holder, in the names of 3 giants upon whose prodigious shoulders he obviously stands; Shirley (Chisholm), Malcom X and Martin.

Who knows? Maybe the next time Mr. Holder visits his relatives in Barbados, he'll invite the ObamaFamily to come with him: the children will LOVE the clear warm water and the friendly people.

THE TAIL THAT WAGS THE DOG:

THE TAIL THAT WAGS THE DOG:
(Tie it down - or cut it off)


Dear President Obama April 2009
White House
Washington, D.C.

I have to tell you; when, as this nation's First Black Flight Attendant and longtime activist against untreated racism/colorism, I was (and remain) acutely embarrassed at the obdurate and ill-timed refusal of your Administration to attend the anti-racism(colorism) World Conference convening in Geneva as this complaint is written.

As the author of The Little Black Book: Black Male Survival in America: Staying Alive & Well in an Institutionally RACIST Society (a publication documenting the egregious and widespread ongoing killings of Black [& other people of color] males by police officers infected with untreated color bigotry not to mention the myriad other incidents of color-based injustices throughout every state in the Union, I find it disingenuous for the great country of the U.S.A. to proffer such a weak excuse for not attending the Conference.

'AFRAID?' 'Afraid that the (illegal) state of Israel' will be held accountable by other countries for its uncivil untenable treatment of hapless Palestinians? The bold U.S.A. - Inveterate Invader down through the years of over two hundred countries of color including Iraq - afraid?


That won't wash and certainly doesn't enhance our credibility (even if this is not publicly acknowledged by other nations) - with the rest of the multi-colored world.

With all due respect, it is way past time for the U.S.A. to prove to Israel's Netanyahu et al. that it is not a servile, knee-jerking yahoo - allowing that colorist nation to 'wag the dog' over the critical issue of racism/colorism!

(Don't for a moment think that the sight -CNN- of all of those 'follow-fashion' whites stalking out of the Geneva anti-racism Conference when Iran's President Ahmadinejad told the stark truth about Israel being "the most cruel and racist country" didn't resonate with the rest of the majority-people-of-color world)

No, given its unfortunate history of rapine and enslavement of countless millions of African hueman beings, fairness, decency and accountability demand that the U.S.A. stand up for the democracy of which it boasts, and once and for all publicly commit to equitable treatment of individuals irrespective of the color of their skins.

Mr. BlackAfrican President Barack Obama, when it comes to little Israel, tie the tail down - or cut it off!

Respectfully,
Your Sister-in-THE-Struggle,

Carol Taylor R.N.
Mother, GrandMother
Advocate For Change - www.racismtest.org (posted on www.
Discussrace.com)
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste.11A BK NY 11225 U.S.A.