The Baltimore Sun reports that:

Striding backwards at the head of about 40 men and boys who had walked 29 miles from Baltimore and had more than a half-dozen to go under the scorching summer sun Monday morning, Munir Bahar focused his gaze on the line of five boys at the front.

They had linked their arms around each other’s shoulders in an expression of solidarity to propel them forward through the pain.

Each was a member of Bahar’s Youth COR, which is tapping young people to serve as community ambassadors in the wake of the unrest after the death of Freddie Gray in April and the unprecedented spate of homicides across the city since…

Their journey from Baltimore to Washington was part of an effort by Bahar and his 300 Men March organization to shine a national spotlight on the group’s anti-violence work at a time when the killing in Baltimore is spiraling out of control. The city has seen more than 200 homicides this year, with a spike in recent months that has pushed the count far ahead of last year’s pace.

“We’re just trying to show love,” said Eric Baker, 19. “Love is action. It can actually have a huge impact.”

The 300 Men March puts men who share an “enough is enough” mindset on the streets for regular walks through some of Baltimore’s most violent neighborhoods.

As Bahar sees it, with the right resources, the model could be scaled up across the city.

Bahar intended the 35-mile march from Baltimore to Washington on Sunday and Monday to draw attention to the program and the “Emergency Operating Plan” he has created as a pitch to potential donors.

Despite assertions to the contrary, black people regularly protest against inner city violence. We hold countless prayer vigils for young men and women gone too soon. The courageous work of the 300 Men March is just one of many examples. I commend those brothers for their bold commitment to peace and decency. I hope that the group receives many donations to fund their important work.

We must save our communities from self-destruction. To paraphrase Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, we need to rally in our own homes. We must ensure that our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters are not entangled in this sick culture of death and mayhem. As my imam says, this is “our community and our responsibility.”  We must rally against benign neglect, poverty, failing schools and unemployment as well. Those problems fuel the violence.

Lastly, we must hold our elected officials accountable for failing to adequately address the out-of-control carnage in Baltimore. We must march to the polls and vote out the politicians who have failed us. We must elect politicians actually have concrete and viable plans to improve Baltimore.

[Originally posted at New Possibilities]

The post 300 Men March: Baltimore Youth March Against Violence appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I went home for the holidays and went over a family friend’s house for Kwanzaa, a tradition that seems to have been birthed in my early childhood and has truly grown and expanded beyond what I could even imagine, and I brought this up with close family and friends asking “Where is the movement?”  I kept hearing a lot of people describe things in motion, but I never heard a movement.  In cities across the country I watched churches and other groups march from here to there carrying signs, and I also saw them do it with police protection as they gathered or walked.  Something about that just didn’t sit right with me.  I kept searching for the end-game as I watched these rallies. While people could print t-shirts that read “I Can’t Breathe” (the famous last words of Eric Garner) or construct placards with “Black Lives Matter” on them and show up at a time and place and join a rally of like-minded people, for me that does not constitute a movement.

I wrote an open letter to the Church of God in Christ, the historically black Pentecostal denomination, asking that they stage a protest in St. Louis last November as their annual convention was taking place a mere 12 miles from protests in Ferguson.  Suffice it to say, they focused on other things. Part of that open letter stemmed from the fact that I was yearning for some type of coalescence around a few good actionable ideas.  As the conversations around police wearing body cameras came about, I remember thinking that this is a pretty simple demand and that protests be geared for something like this: demanding a state legislature mandate that all police departments across the state have body cameras within the next three years.  Again, I never saw that either.

It bothered me that I never saw, and still haven’t seen, any tangible actions emerge from this so-called movement.  It bothers me because while I agree with the sentiments and the ideologies of Black Lives Matter, I can’t see how any of it has any staying power.  And by staying power, I don’t see it as a change agent for the revolution of the system.  One of the reasons the protests surrounding the Jena 6 were so effective was because there was a very clear goal: the charges against Mychal Bell and others need to be reduced from attempted murder and they need to be tried as juveniles, not adults.   And simply, the protests ended after that goal was accomplished.

Part of the issue with the protests surrounding Black Lives Matter is that the name itself isn’t an actionable phrase nor is it easily accessible phrase to the masses.  In the not so distant past we’ve seen instances of citizens founding movements, political and cultural in nature that don’t fall into the trap of Black Lives Matter.  One of the earlier one’s from this time period was the Christian conservative movement of the Moral Majority.  While I fundamentally disagree with the politics and found that their ideologies stands in direct opposition of black lives mattering, their organization and mobilization is worth noting.  For one, they had a generic name that allowed accessibility of the masses.  Inherently, words like “moral” have a wide appeal and in a populist culture, who doesn’t want to be part of the “majority.”  This was part of why the Tea Party movement actually has a few wins in their column.

The Tea Party, unlike the sentiments around Black Lives Matter, understood what leadership could do for a movement.  The energy behind the Tea Party allowed them to crown political popes like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and even regular citizens like Joe the Plumber to be titular figureheads as use outlets like that of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to spread their ideology.  The recalcitrant and oft repeated thinking that Black Lives Matter is a “leaderless movement” is the example of cognitive dissonance over what really is required of a movement.  Their effectiveness is also helped by the singular anti-focus on Barack Obama.  From the moment he was sworn into office, there was a contingent that was laser focused on opposing his every turn.  Even when the move to make him a one-term president failed, the ways in which they assumed office with each mid-term election completely flipped congressional control from blue to red.  There is no laser focus associated with Black Lives Matter.  From one moment it focuses on police brutality and the next moment it’s focused on the broad problems associated with poverty.

Part of what makes a movement is that there is an end goal by which the motions are moving toward.  In 2008, Barack Obama did something that the country hadn’t seen since the Moral Majority buoyed Ronald Reagan to re-election in 1984 and formed a political movement from one of the country’s major two parties.  The sheer mass of people who came together to vote for him was simply astounding.  “Yes we can” was a rally cry that allowed for a rainbow coalition of people from varying walks of like to get what that meant and to be a part of that “we.”  Rightly so, the conservatives tried to punch holes in such a nebulous slogan, but at the end of the day, you can’t take away the good feeling that saying “Yes we can” provides.

Chanting “Black Lives Matter” is a statement of anger.  While anger can fuel protests, anger doesn’t have the emotional sustainability for a movement.  To declare “I can’t breathe” is echoing the death knell of people who are about to expire and they don’t exist as life-giving words that can propel the inner-workings of a movement.  The righteous indignation of Black Lives Matter is very righteous; a noble ideology whose consciousness is revolutionary in and of itself.  However, the problem with it is that it requires a type of creative rhetoric that refuses to engage the masses for the sake of what appears to be personal aggrandizement.  I think it’s hard to say that the leaderless leaders of Black Lives Matter are in it for themselves, but it does bear questioning just how much are they in it for the long haul.

Not having institutional buy-in with Black Lives Matters creates a space where people can fill up TV and radio time to make monuments unto themselves while still claiming a movement.  Part of this has been performed in the way the institutional Black Church has not been involved tangibly in Black Lives Matter.  While there are numerous black churches across the American urban landscape who have been on message about the ideology behind it, none of them have made the next step in laser focusing on very specific issues in the communities from which they are located.  It stands to reason, however, that many of these churches have already been doing some of the work prior to last summer and they may very well continue doing that work, but none of them have emerged on a national level leading the charge.

My ultimate disappointment with Black Lives Matter is that it doesn’trequire people to change their level of consciousness, it only asks them to do so.  Hashtags and tweets to hundreds of followers only goes so far, most times its preaching to the choir.  Personally, I support hashtag activism because it is a way in which one can display personal sentiments.  But at the same time I recognize that a hashtag doesn’t have staying power.  While yes Black Twitter has had the power to actually get someone fired from the job, at least up until this point, it hasn’t displayed the power to effect systematic change.  Social media operates on the notion of partial anonymity and anonymity is not the hallmark of a movement: a movement needs a face.  This is why the comment sections on message boards and trolls flourish; they are disembodied thoughts that float throughout the ether seeking whom they may devour.  But the inverse is true as well, making a difference still requires the individual to personify themselves.  Tweets and Facebook status updates don’t have the power to be sacrificial lambs;  none of us can truly embody that black lives do matter if the only thing we offer up to sacrifice is our timelines.

This millennial generation that I am a part of seems to be more interested in claiming a movement with only less than 12 months of motion.  There seems to be a strong desire to stand in the tradition of the modern civil rights movement, yet divorce themselves from the institutional structures that supported that movement.  This dissonance exists because of the ways in which larger-than-life figures such as Jesse Jackson, Charlie Rangel, Bobby Rush, Al Sharpton, Andrew Young and others who exist on the local level have stood as impassable gatekeepers preventing institutional access favoring respectability speeches toward the youth rather than giving them tools of empowerment.  Rather now, we have a class of leaderless leaders in this generation who have inherited the wind; standing as gatekeepers to transient institutions whose building blocks are hashtags, retweets and likes.

Black lives mattering is bigger than social media.  It always has been, and it would do good for more people to realize that.  Social media is merely a tool to advance that ideology, it isn’t the movement itself.  Twitter strategies only go so far in the furthering of a goal, but as I’ve noted before, these protests have no real goal behind them.  It exists to memorialize the ones who have fallen by the side of the road either physically or spiritually as a result of institutional racism that fails to see that black lives matter.  For me, right now, Black Lives Matter is nothing more than the upheaval of lament and therefore it does have it’s place.  However that place is not as a movement, just a prolonged moment.

The post #BlackLivesMatter: Waiting on the Movement appeared first on Madness & Reality.

This is a question asked in W.E.B. Dubois’ treatise The Souls of Black Folk. The question doesn’t ask how does it feel to have problems or have the kinds of problems that some people can’t or won’t understand. The question directly asks how does it feel like to actually be a problem. This question is also the title of a book by Moustafa Bayoumi who gives an indepth look as to what it’s like to live in a time where being a young Arab or Muslim American is often judged as being the enemy. A threat. A terrorist.

Being a member of the “other”, especially if you’re black, you are not granted the privilege of being individuals, especially if a crime occurs. When a black person is so much as suspected of any crime, the whole race is suspect. If a black person was the suspect and there are white victims, the whole race is looked upon with disdain and mistrust, seen as the potential enemy of white folks who will seek another innocent white person to get back at them for slavery. It seems like it’s always slavery that’s the underlying reason white people believe is the reason for any black-on-white crime. But I digress.

I remember a few years ago back in 2008. A UNC Student named Eve Carson who had a potentially bright future ahead of her was robbed and murdered by two young black males. It was a major news story. A white woman was killed by not one, but two black men. I also remembered two words in one article I read. Racial tension. I hear and see those words often whenever there’s a story about an interracial crime. Usually when it’s black-on-white, that’s when a feeling of dread hits me, because I fear of repercussions for that area against the black community. When a black person commits a crime against white people, black people, not just those responsible, must be held accountable.

Most people still can’t, or won’t, grasp the racism that reeks whenever black people are seen as a collective problem that must always pay whenever a few of their own fuck up. A lot of people avoid being called the r-word by excusing it with statistics, so-called “facts” that they’ve found most likely at a racist conservative website that exaggerates numbers to prove their point. After all is said and done Whiteness is nuanced, blackness is not

On the other hand, white people are granted the privilege of individuality no matter how often or how heinous a crime is. Whether it’s a school shooting, a bombing, serial rape or even mass shootings, white people are given the third degree and had their culture questioned, nor are they given stern lectures to “do better” by those who unofficially appoint themselves as guidance counselors for the whole race.

It has been a few days since the Biker shootout in Waco Texas that claimed nine lives, injured over a dozen more and led to the arrest of over a hundred bikers. The media treated the bloodbath with kid gloves, turning it into a singular incident where it was an isolated tragedy and not part of a string of white-on-white crime where more than a few lives are usually taken.

However, the same media treated the protests in Baltimore and Ferguson as if it was a warzone. Protests themselves became riots. Protestors became looters. Animals. Thugs. The peaceful anger and uprising vanished within the news media’s sensationalism and racism and became an outbreak of black pathology unfolding before America’s eyes.

No matter what, black people are constantly seen as the problem in America. It’s safe to say that no matter what we do, our faults end up overshadowing our accomplishments as well as overall humanity and individuality though the eyes of the white racist mindframe that continuously sees itself as innocent and normal while it sees blackness as criminal, pathologic and something to be feared and taken care of mostly by imprisonment or brute force.

The post Race: When Being Black is A Problem appeared first on Madness & Reality.

And this is where Marc Lamont Hill and Tara Setmayer comes in. During a segment onCNN, they had a war of words:

Blaze host Tara Setmayer squared off with CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill, arguing that Gray’s arrest was a singular case of police misconduct, not an incident in a wider problem of systemic police mistreatment of African-American suspects. “You don’t have to put a race card on everything,” she said.

Hill wasn’t having it. “Black people die every day at the hands of law enforcement,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what color the officer is. The only color that matters is blue…. State violence against citizens is a problem. State violence against poor people is a problem. It’s disproportionate. When you look at the number of black people that die at the hands of law enforcement in proportion to their demographic percentage, we’re overrepresented in police killing. That’s not a coincidence.” [1]

On Hill’s side, there is the understanding that Black people have a wide spread problem with police issues. On Tara Setmayer’s side, there is the problem that police just weren’t doing their jobs. Sadly, they are actually arguing when they mostly agree with each other.

Marc Lamont Hill Wins the Debate

The issue that needs to be addressed is that Marc Lamont Hill is absolutely correct in most (not all) of his affirmations. White it seems that many write Hill off as a “race baitersupreme”, there has always been underlying issues with the police dealings with Black people in Baltimore. With a high rate of killings by police, added to the “zero tolerance arrest” policy being upheld, Black people in Baltimore see the police as adversaries. Adding on the fact that the police has had these issues for decades should set off an alarm. TheNAACP had to get an investigation into the police as far back as 1980. So, Marc Lamont Hill knew what he was talking about.

The problem with Tara Setmayer’s argument is that she didn’t come prepared to actually defend her premise. She came with a lot to say but didn’t back it up with any worthwhile facts. Meanwhile, she wanted to argue against a situation where the facts, figures, and the burden of evidence has existed for more decades than many want to admit. It is safe to say that this was not Tara Setmayer’s battle to win.

We can call Marc Lamont Hill a “race baiter” all you want. We can even question some of the things he said (Gray was never shot; I’m need to see some numbers dealing with those middle class black people being harmed as well). What we can’t say is that Marc Lamont Hill wasn’t telling the truth.

Tara Setmayer was Also Correct (Short Sighted)

Still, can we just collectively say that Tara Setmayer was right about one thing: Baltimore has a policing problem? The city has paid about $5.7 million since 2011 over lawsuits claiming that police officers beat ups alleged suspects [2]. Even sadder, many would think that these people “brought it upon themselves”. Yet, seeing that the victims ranged in age from 15 years old all the way up to 87 years young, age is nothing but a number [3]. Tara Setmayer did recognize that the police have an issue with handling their business without giving someone a black eye or broken bones.

I just hope that she recognizes the race issue within all of it before it is too late. It needs to be noted that most of these suspects that won lawsuits were Black [4].

Marc Lamont Hill and Tara Setmayer Need a Common Ground

Both Marc Lamont Hill and Tara Setmayer should come to an impasse. They are both arguing over the same initial issue: police brutality. Yet, they both want to address the obvious racial disparities that exist. Tara Setmayer shouldn’t have even argued against something so painfully obvious. In addition, Marc Lamont Hill needs to make sure the facts check everything before he mentions it. In the end, this debate would have been worthwhile if the problem wasn’t already obviously one sided.

The post Freddie Gray: Marc Lamont Hill Argues with Tara Setmayer appeared first on Madness & Reality.

BESTPIX BALTIMORE, MD – APRIL 27: Demonstrators climb on a destroyed Baltimore Police car in the street near the corner of Pennsylvania and North avenues during violent protests following the funeral of Freddie Gray April 27, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. Gray, 25, who was arrested for possessing a switch blade knife April 12 outside the Gilmor Homes housing project on Baltimore’s west side. According to his attorney, Gray died a week later in the hospital from a severe spinal cord injury he received while in police custody. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) *** BESTPIX ***

CIVIL UNREST

There are those that would have you forget that this country was founded on civil unrest and violence. There are those  that would have you believe that the events leading to this country’s  Revolutionary War were inane and non-violent in nature when in fact the opposite is true.  Digs and all kinds of  shade have been thrown at the protesters in Baltimore, Ferguson, NYC,  Oakland, and elsewhere aided and abetted by the media. Invoking the imagery of the “thug”  to describe ALL protesters and to diminish the serious problems that are the underlying causes of so much civil unrest in this country right now.

SONS OF LIBERTY

Early in the summer of 1765 in Boston,  a number of shopkeepers and artisans who called themselves The Loyal Nine, started preparing for taking action against the Stamp Act. These weren’t the leading men of Boston, but instead workers and tradesmen. The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1765 and resulted in taxes being levied on any piece of paper that was used by the American Colonists. Newspapers, Shipping Papers, contracts, any legal documents, licenses and even playing cards were subject to this tax. The money was earmarked for troops that were stationed in the Appalachian Mountains. The colonists were upset by the idea that up till that point taxes were used to promote commerce and in this instance they were being used to raise monies for purposes that the colonists had no say so about and the precedent of taxes being created outside of the colonies for various reasons was seen as a road they did not wish to go down.

This group which is by some fondly remembered as the “original patriots” engaged in various acts of civil disobedience and violence.

In August of 1765 they hung an effigy of Andrew Oliver – Commissioner of Stamps with a boot sticking out of it with a devil. A symbolic reference to the Earl of Bute. When the local sheriffs were ordered to remove this display they declined to do so as crowds had gathered and later that evening would commence to throwing stones at Oliver’s house while the occupants were still in there. Eventually they would set fire to and ransack the house through the rest of the night. Included in that evenings activities were beheading the effigy and setting that on fire also.

In an ongoing show of Civil defiance of the Stamp Act – newspapers even after the law went into effect refused to obtain the “stamp” and pay the tax associated with it.

Somehow with all the events and actions of the Sons of Liberty being well documented – it has somehow been overlooked in the rush to brand the current protesters as unruly mobs of thugs. The actual history of the founding of this country actually would encompass behavior that would  fall into that same category.

CINCINNATI RIOTS OF 1829

Between 1820 and 1829 the African American population in Cincinnati grew from 700 to over 2,000 causing great concern and fear  for the white, middle-class residents who they felt were
creating a hazard in their city :

“The rapid increase of our black population, is of itself a great evil, night walkers, lewd persons, and those who lounge around without any visible means of support,”

These residents actually petitioned local officials to remove the black citizens citing their poor living conditions were a “fire hazard”.  In the midst of this in 1826 a group of white men formed the OCS – Ohio Chapter of the American Colonization Society whose sole purpose was to spread misleading and defamatory propaganda claiming that blacks were a threat to society.

Sound familiar?

These lovely citizens also took it upon themselves to petition the local government to enforce a  “Black Code“. Enacted  originally in 1807 – this “code” required black residents to pay a $500 bond  which would serve as proof of their “respectability”.

In June of 1826 – notices were sent out to black residents that they had 30 days to secure the bond or be forced to leave the city.  Black residents already seeing the writing on the wall were already preparing to leave the city to re-establish their community elsewhere. While their original plans looked to secure property in rural Ohio to found their own city  things didn’t work out that way. in 1829 two representatives from the black community were sent to Canada to survey land for relocation and starting a new settlement. While they were away the local paper issued an ultimatum for the black residents to vacate the city immediately. A request for an extension of time was met with growing hostility of the local  white residents against the black citizens. From August 15th to August 22nd of that year mobs of whites attacked black homes and businesses. The police offered no protection from these mobs and the mayor refused to call an end to the violence.

– Charles P Wright Museum of African American History

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY

A minister and resident of St. Louis MO, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was a very vocal abolitionist who used his pulpit as well as his newspaper to express his views against slavery and on abolition.  His printing press was destroyed  no less than three times by angry mobs who disagreed with his views on slavery and his abolitionist stance. After the  third time he moved to Illinois to continue his work there and set up his paper The Alton Observer to continue to express his abolitionist views. In 1837 his warehouse was attacked by a mob wielding guns – gun fire broke out and Mr. Lovejoy was killed in a hail of bullets.

White on White crime – who knew?

MEMPHIS UPRISING 1866

The evening of April 30th 1866 found four police officers walking down Causey Street encountering several blacks who they proceeded to force off the sidewalk. During this encounter one of the blacks fell and one of the officers stumbled over him.  This led to the officers drawing their weapons and proceeding to pistol whip the blacks there. The confrontation resulted in a stalemate and both parties withdrew. The next day another confrontation took place when several blacks were arrested on South street for being “boisterous and noisy”. This confrontation between some black soldiers and police resulted in one officer being shot in the finger and another officer being shot and later dying from his wounds.  The police withdrew initially but would soon return with reinforcements. They then proceeded to fire on a  completely unrelated crowd of blacks – shooting men women and children.

The city recorder – John C. Creighton, arrived at the corner of Vance and Causey Streets and told the white mob which had assembled there that they should arm  themselves and kill every Negro and drive them out of the city. That night Blacks were hunted down and assaulted, robbed and or shot by police, firemen, and any white citizen who chose to join in. Blacks houses were searched under false pretenses, and then set on fire. All met with little or no resistance by blacks.

On May 2nd a posse comprised of police and citizens would again commence to indiscriminate attacks on blacks in South Memphis. Men women and children were shot down without mercy and no quarter given.  Blacks were trapped in their homes that were set on fire by these mobs. Some were forced and or thrown into buildings and homes that had been set on fire. As the attacks usually occurred at night, many were shot in their beds. This mayhem continued till May 4th and probably stopped as most blacks by then had taken off to hide in the country.

The mayor of Memphis at the time:  The Hon. John Park – was excused for his lack of intervention and not actively trying to stop the riots by friends who claimed “he was too intoxicated at the time to realize what was going on”.

None of those who participated in these acts of incredible violence and mayhem have ever been charged even though their identities were well known.

SO WHO ARE THE REAL THUGS?

Again sound familiar? Why  this term is being  thrown around so cavalierly? Do people not know the history?

There are way too many examples of this throughout this countries history. Wrapped into the selective amnesia of a certain segment of this country is the convenient forgetfulness of the violence that they perpetrated upon anyone who got in the way of their Manifest Destiny.  They would brand people as thugs and forget the  Boston Tea Party – where material goods namely Tea were thrown overboard in a show of deviance against The Stamp Act and included the likes of

There are those  that would have you conveniently forget. The mainstream media has led the charge in branding those who protest against the inhumane treatment and conditions they are forced to live in as looters, thugs, miscreants and of no account and unimportant.

BALTIMORE AND BEYOND

There are many who want to say well that happened back then and it has no bearing on anything taking place right now.

Then  you have Ferguson, and Baltimore, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Darrien Hunt, Rekia Boyd, Miriam Carey, Michael Brown, Victor White III, Walter Scott, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Kathryn Johnston, Eleanor Bumpurs, John Crawford III, Oscar Grant, Aiyana Jones, Johnathan Ferrell, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., Andy Lopez

And to all the countless others who’s names we don’t know-their families and supporters…

So who tell me again, who are the REAL thugs…??

Stay Woke People….know your history…

Here is a good place to start:

Riots In The United States

Originally posted at The Good Black Woman

The post Baltimore Riots: Historically Speaking, Nothing Has Changed appeared first on Madness & Reality.

This is totally unacceptable:

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND —A brazen scheme to smuggle drugs and cell phones into Baltimore jails. More than two dozen people face federal charges, including corrections officers—some of whom got pregnant by the same inmate.

[…] It’s a jailhouse soap opera involving drugs, sex and money between corrections officers and inmates. The operation was brought down by tapped cell phones.

Twenty-five people now face federal charges after being part of one of the largest gang-operated criminal enterprises seen at the Baltimore City Detention Center.

“These 25 defendants participated in running the activities of the Black Guerilla Family from behind bars in Baltimore City,” said Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney.

Thirteen female correction officers, seven inmates and five alleged co-conspirators are charged with racketeering, money laundering and possession with the intent to distribute. Officials say all 13 have been suspended without pay and the department is moving to fire them.

The affidavit says the corrections officers helped members of the notorious Black Guerilla Family gang smuggle cell phones, marijuana, prescription pills and cigarettes into the jail to sell to other inmates and make thousands of dollars.

[…] Corrections officers hid the contraband in their shoes. Unlike other facilities in Maryland, Baltimore City does not require employees to remove their shoes when going through screening.

“We are committed to ensuring that this activity does not happen again,” said Baltimore City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein.

Tavon White is alleged to have impregnated four different Baltimore City Corrections officers.

The ring leader of it all, according to the indictment, is Tavon White, a four-year inmate charged with attempted murder.

He reportedly made $16,000 in one month off the smuggled contraband.

Four corrections officers–Jennifer Owens, Katera Stevenson, Chania Brooks and Tiffany Linder, who are also facing charges–allegedly became impregnated by White since he’s been in jail.

Charging documents reveal Owens had “Tavon” tattooed on her neck and Stevenson had “Tavon” tattooed on her wrist.

The indictment seeks the forfeiture of $500,000 and other proceeds of the enterprise, including luxury automobiles.

White allegedly gave Owens a diamond ring and luxury cars to Owens, Stevenson and Brooks.

[…] As a result of the investigation, Maynard says policy and security changes are forthcoming.

The BGF has been a dominating gang in Maryland detention facilities since 2006. (source)

Watch the video below:

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/04/23/25-correctional-officers-inmates-indicted-for-gang-activity-in-baltimore-jails/

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Because democracy isn’t a spectator sport, and because some of youse Negroes just don’t get it. Allow me to present to you a few folks who do actually get it, who are making demands of their electorate. You know, the same democratic tradition which has long existed in this country? Well, for me it’s good to see people – especially people of color – rise up and let their voices be heard. After all, many of our ancestors died for the right to vote as we’re always reminded.

However, voting or casting a ballot, though important and very significant, is only the first step in affecting change since democracy is what happens between elections. And just in case you forgot, people in several urban centers while catching hell are being further victiomized (see Baltimore foreclosures here) and marginalized by proposed budget cuts, while wealthy corporations play with our money, as handed out by the government via tax loopholes:

More at The Real News

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