I’ll admit that I don’t know the ins and outs of federal hate crime legislation but, I am wondering how every last one of the 6 people in custody for the week-long torture, beating and sexual assault of a black woman in West Virginia will get away with not being charged with a hate crime.

It was revealed, today, that one of the suspects, Bobby Brewster, has a previous relationship with the victim. Because the crime was not “random” in nature, this, apparently, negates the use of federal hate crimes charges.

However, the state has said that it will pursue stiffer charges for the suspects. Detailed below are the list of charges:

Frankie Brewster, 49, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and giving false information during a felony investigation.

Bobby Brewster, 24, also of Big Creek, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and assault during the commission of a felony.

Danny J. Combs, 20, of Harts, is charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding.

Karen Burton, 46, of Chapmanville was charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during the commission of a felony.

Burton’s daughter, Alisha Burton, 23, and George A. Messer, 27, both of Chapmanville, are charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery.

The victim, Megan Willams, 20, is currently recuperating in a hospital and may be released in a few days. In the meantime, the suspects are all currently in custody in lieu of the $100,000 bail for each.

Popularity: 17% [?]

How deep can hate run?

In West Virginia, a 23-year-old black woman was repeatedly beaten, stabbed and sexually assaulted over the course of at least a week. The black woman was abducted and taken to a home where this torture occurred.

Currently, 6 people are in custody in relation to this crime. The suspects include a mother-son pair and a mother-daughter pair. At large still are two suspects who authorities believe drove the woman to the place where the crime occurred. The suspects are Frankie Brewster, 49 (Brewster owns the home where all this happened); Bobby Brewster, 24; Karen Burton, 46; Alisha Burton, 23; George A. Messer, 27; and Danny J. Combs, 20.

The apparent motive is racial as the woman was called racial slurs during her attacks. Also, one of the suspects, Karen Burton, allegedly told the woman that this was happening to her because she was black.

What happened to this poor woman is simple unspeakable. According to the report, in addition to the beatings, stabbings and sexual assaults, she was “forced to eat rat and dog feces and drink from the toilet” and ” had been choked with a cable cord and her hair was cut”.

I find it hard to keep my emotions in check as I read this. When people tell me we don’t need hate crime legislation, I keep in mind that things like this still happen. It’s not just about a guy calling you the n-word after pushing you down. There are people with evil intentions who, as it appears in this case, target people strictly based on color.

I fully expect things to get hot in Logan, WV. A crime this heinous cannot be allowed to just go by without a very strong, vocal response from Black America.

Popularity: 16% [?]

It’s no secret that Rush Limbaugh is a racist.

Over the years, the comments he has made on both radio and TV indicate as much. However, his latest may be a new low, even for him. In citing reasons for the call for action to stop the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, Limbaugh hypothesizes that the only reason that some Democrats are calling for it is to get black votes. However, it gets even more interesting after that:

“So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela — who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing”

According to Limbugh, we should not go into Darfur because they didn’t attack us (…and Iraq did?) Kind of a screwy argument, huh?

The bottom line is that to people like Limbaugh, black and brown life are insignificant. Statements like this show just how much he believes this.

The audio from the segment is below.

 

 Rush's Racism Concerning Sudan: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 31% [?]

A recent report released by two of NYPD’s counterterrorism experts should raise a red flag to anyone who actually cares about the Constitution. A byline in an article about this report tells it all. The report calls for “increased domestic surveillance and pre-emptive action against American Muslims who might become ‘homegrown terrorists’ by visiting Internet sites.”

Think about this…we need to go after Muslims for visiting web sites.

Okay, I know, this is where someone says “…but 9/11 changed everything.” However, read this passage from Nat Parry’s article, calling attention to the hypocrisy of it all:

Arguably, there has been more reason to fear right-wing militia types like Timothy McVeigh (who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing) or Cuban terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles (now protected from deportation by the Bush administration despite his role in repeated terror attacks).

Yet, after angry white male McVeigh car-bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, there was no talk of suspending the Constitution or rounding up right-wing militia members for pre-emptive detention. Law enforcement simply tracked down the conspirators and punished them through the normal criminal justice system. (McVeigh was executed and his co-conspirators were sentenced to prison terms.)

Many right-wing extremists also have their hatreds fueled not just by like-minded Web sites but by talk radio and TV personalities, such as Michael Savage and Ann Coulter, who flippantly use hostile, even threatening, language against political enemies.

Indeed, if Silber and Bhatt based their report on actual killings by domestic terrorists – rather than concentrating on a handful of thwarted Muslim plans and even theoretical threats – they would have written a report that not only took aim at violent jihadist Web sites but at hate talk on right-wing radio and TV shows.

Tell the truth and shame the devil, Mr. Parry.

Popularity: 41% [?]

If you believe former chairman of the Roger Williams University, Ralph Papitto, this is what happened.

Pappito was a board member for nearly 40 years so, I can only imagine how he might have used his position to make it harder to recruit black students and staff. I say that because last May, when the board met, there was a heated discussion on the university’s difficulty in recruiting black people to the school.

Then it happened.

Barbara Roberts, then a board member, said Papitto became irate when he discussed pressures to make the board more diverse, at one point using the slur to refer to black candidates.

She said he then told the board he knew he couldn’t say that because of Don Imus, the radio host who was fired after referring to Rutgers University women’s basketball team members as “nappy-headed hos.”

“There was, like, this complete and utter silence, and I was shocked beyond belief and very angry,” Roberts said.

Papitto has given the school at least $7 million, and his name is on the law school, the only one in Rhode Island.

He said he had never used the term before.

“The first time I heard it was on television and then rap music or something,” Papitto told WPRO.

Awww…hell no. You’ve never used the word before and your old a$$ first heard it while listening to rap? Please stop. There’s no fool like an old fool. The sad part is that he’s been able to hold this attitude while overseeing the direction of an institution of higher learning. This says a lot about Roger Williams University.

Popularity: 45% [?]

A few weeks ago, columnist Leonard Pitts inflamed racists across the country for a column he did deriding them for playing the victim card. Certain individuals in the Knoxville, Tenn area were calling for the carjacking,rape and murder of a white couple, allegedly done by 5 black suspects, to be categorized as a hate crime. Obviously, the crime was barbaric and those who perpetrated it should have the book thrown at them but, this appears to have been motivated by opportunity, not race.

Pitts was not belittling the crime. Instead, he was chastising those who, incorrectly, seized upon the racial differences between the victims and the accused, stating that if the races of the people had been reversed, the crime would have been reported more widely. Pitts went on to dissect this argument, including citing a 2001 study that showed “Blacks and Latinos are underrepresented in news media as victims of crime and significantly overrepresented as perpetrators, based on crime statistics; newspaper articles about white homicide victims are longer and more frequent than those about black ones; and interracial violent crime is more likely to be reported even though it is just about the rarest kind of violent crime.”

Well, this had the white racists up in arms, which lead one white supremacist web site to post his address, phone number and wife’s name (another site followed suit, as well). So, Pitts has been receiving death threats via phone and email. The owner of the site refuses to take the information down. When the editor of the Miami Herald called the site’s editor, Bill White (this has to be a pseudonym), he was told that “We have no intention of removing Mr. Pitts’ personal information. Frankly, if some loony took the info and killed him, I wouldn’t shed a tear. That also goes for your whole newsroom.”

The FBI has been called in to investigate the threats. Let’s hope that this madness does not rise above the level of mere threats and that Pitts will continue to speak out and continue to speak the truth as he sees it.

Popularity: 21% [?]

As many may know, the Army has had a very hard time meeting recruiting numbers over the past few years. It seems that when people don’t believe that we should be in Iraq, they don’t sign up or don’t encourage their kids to sign up for military service (surprise!).

Now, to get closer to the numbers they need, the Army has lowered standards for recruits. To allow some recruits in, they have increased the number of “moral waivers” they offer, meaning that more recruits with criminal backgrounds, emotional issues, histories of drug abuse and poor educational backgrounds are now being enlisted into the military.

So, it may come as no surprise that some of those recruits are flaming racists.

Fred Wilson is a proud Ku Klux Klan recruiter. It has been revealed that, despite his very public Klan activities, he is likely headed for the U.S. Army, after being recruited in February 2006.

Wilson was supposed to report to basic training in July 2006 but, had his entry postponed after his involvement in an attack on another Klan leader, which landed him in jail for ten days.

However, if you think this is just an isolated case, consider the following:

The Army has strict regulations against active-duty personnel engaging in “racist extremist” activities and a stated commitment to weeding out hate group members. But as the Intelligence Report reported in a cover story last summer, recruiters and commanders, under heavy pressure to maintain enlistment levels in the midst of an unpopular war, often look the other way when it comes to a recruit or active-duty soldier’s involvement with racist extremism.

The Pentagon’s official response to the report, which detailed whistle-blower allegations of “thousands” of extremists admitted to the Army alone, was to describe it as “inaccurate and misleadingly alarmist.” It shrugged off requests to enforce a “zero tolerance” policy toward racial extremists in the military.

The last thing the tinder box of Iraq needs is racists who would look to kill anyone brown. If you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this to come up with recruits, you should reconsider your war policy.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Those familiar with the “Chapelle Show” would remember the character of Clayton Bigsby. He was a blind black man who didn’t know he was black. Instead, he thought he was a white racist. The joke continued because he was head of a white power organization and only those in his inner circle knew he was black.

Well, the story of William Hoff, Jr. has some similarities. Hoff was an avowed racist and prominent member of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), the largest neo-Nazi group in the U.S. However, when he died in a car accident in December 2006, he carried a secret with him to the grave. Hoff was of black ancestry.

Sometime between the age of 17 and 19, the raging racist came out of Hoff. In his adult years, he joined the KKK and the Aryan Nation. In 1969, he did a six-year stretch in Attica Prison for a plot to bomb civil rights activists. Upon leaving jail, he joined the NSM.

During all of this, Hoff’s brother Sheldon took a different path, eventually falling in love with a non-white woman and becoming the father to two biracial children, whom he says his brother adored. During the 80’s Sheldon began to research his family’s geneology. In 1995, Sheldon came across something very interesting:

…in the 1910 census, their father’s family was listed as black. Sheldon eventually traced their black ancestry back to the 1600s.

That’s right. Hoff came from a long line of black men. Sheldon Hoff said his brother rebuffed the claim “but after that he never gave us any of his ‘white is superior’ stuff.”

So, in a bit of irony, a man who spent his life hating black people found out he was indeed one of those people.

Popularity: 31% [?]

I can’t tell you what it is about some folks that makes them comfortable disrespecting black people. Perhaps, they feel that they are too rich/powerful to be touched. Perhaps, they are just plain hateful. Or, in some cases, it’s a combination of both.

Don Imus is the reason why I don’t buy into the belief that Democrats can’t be racists. I have heard clips of him saying things that have gotten my temperature to rise but, this has gone way too far.

On his morning show yesterday, Imus referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy headed hos.” Imus went on to draw a contrast with the Tennessee women’s team (predominately white) by referring to them and saying “The girls from Tennessee — they all looked cute.”.

Not to be left out of the conversation, the show’s producer,Bernard McGuirk, went on to call the Rutgers team some “hard-core hos” and referred to the Rutgers/Tennessee matchup as “The Jigaboos vs. The Wannabees” (an apparent reference to Spike Lee’s movie, School Daze). McGuirk has been known to make other racist comments such as saying, “One time, a friend, he says to me, ‘Listen, one of these days you’re gonna see Venus and Serena Williams in Playboy.’ I said, ‘You’ve got a better shot at National Geographic.’ ” Rosenberg also referred to Venus Williams as an “animal.”

What is so striking is the casual way in which they refer to black women as “hos” and use the word “jigaboo” so freely, as if it’s part of their normal vocabulary (hmm…).

Below is a video clip of the segment.

 

 Imus referring to black women as nappy headed hos: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 51% [?]

I guess even the possibility of a black President is too much from some. In a lot of cases, it gets to the point that racial prejudices bubble to the top. In other cases, they spill over.

Such is the case with country music station radio host Sam Allred. Allred is co-host of KVET’s “Sam and Bob in the Morning” broadcast out of Austin, TX.

Allred reached deep into the racist archives for the following comment he made last Thursday (3/2/07) in regards to Barack Obama. Below is a transcript of the exchange he had with his co-host.

Cole said: “He’s moving up in the polls. Obama.”
Allred said: “He’s a likeable guy.”
Cole said: “He’s clean is what what’s-his-name said. Joe Biden told us that.”
Allred said: “Clean darky.”
Cole said: “Sammy!”

Yes, he did use the word “darky” in reference to Obama. I wonder if he was reading the “Autobiography of Bull Conner” or “Strom Thurmond’s Diary” to come up with that one or, is this just simply a part of his normal vocabulary?

Allred has been suspended for a week. The station says that its policy is to “not discriminate against individuals regardless of race, religion, gender, age or sexual orientation.” However, in a strange bit of irony, filling in for Allred is none other than Kinky Friedman. Friedman, who recently ran for governor of Texas, has his own history of animosity black folks and had no problem expressing this publicly while on the campaign trail.

I guess Obama’s candidacy is only serving to remind America of the realities of race relations in this country. Sadly, I’ve seen stuff like this so many times, it’s growing harder and harder to be shocked.

Popularity: 26% [?]