The Obama administration is tackling some of the most insidious civil rights issues of our time

[sheshe2]

A decade before Trayvon Martin, Obama the state senator led a fight against racial profiling

WASHINGTON — In 1999, a fresh-faced state senator on Chicago's South Side heard constituents complain that police were free to pull over drivers because they were black. So Barack Obama proposed a bill to tackle racial profiling. When it failed, he revised it and proposed it again and again.

"Race and ethnicity is not an indicator of criminal activity," Obama said when his bill finally passed the Senate four years later. He said targeting individuals based on race was humiliating and fostered contempt in black communities.

More than a decade later, Obama's efforts to pass groundbreaking racial profiling legislation in Illinois offer some of the clearest clues as to how America's first black president feels about an issue that's polarizing a nation roiled by the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin.

More here
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/215948821.html

But perhaps the President's critics will suggest that somehow he has been corrupted since he got to the White House. Let's remind ourselves that the President's primary responsibility is administering laws. And so often we forget to look at what he has done in that capacity as opposed to simply focusing on the legislative arena.

When it comes to civil rights, the most powerful thing the President did was nominate the first African American Attorney General - Eric Holder. And then they nominated Thomas Perez to head up the DOJ's Civil Rights Division - the one that had been decimated by the Bush administration. What we saw immediately was that the Division started actually hiring lawyers with a background in enforcing civil rights. Just take a look at some of the people they brought on board.

As those who read here regularly know, I'm very interested in what Attorney General Eric Holder is doing to reform the Department of Justice after the havoc wreaked by the Bush administration. And in particular, the excellent work of Tom Perez in running the Civil Rights Division. The poutragers are so busy vilifying Holder for not prosecuting Bush and Cheney for torture, they are completely missing a HUGE story for progressives on this front.

snip

Chiraag Bains

Meanwhile, as an undergraduate, he interned at the liberal Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he co-wrote a guide to assist convicted felons in gaining the right to vote. He also worked with the SEIU local chapter, and was an active member of Amnesty International. Little wonder that he won a Soros Fellowship for New Americans, upon which he described his dream of pursuing a career in “human rights and distributive justice.”

snip

Fara Gold

During her undergraduate days, she worked as a counselor at a rape crisis center in Georgia and vowed thereafter to spend her life helping victims. She writes that she contemplated going into social work but ultimately felt that she could assist victims more effectively as a prosecutor.

More here.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2011/09/when-right-wing-gets-story-left-missed.html

These folks got to work pretty quickly bringing an unprecedented 17 investigations of police brutality to departments in some of the countries largest urban areas like New Orleans, Seattle, and Newark. Of course the most noted story along these lines was the suit DOJ brought against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for civil rights abuses.

More here
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/

***************This is Posted in The Barack Obama Group**************

[Cha]

1. Brilliant compilation from smartypants, she!

Thank you! This is a great reference OP, too.. when looking for information on what PBO, AG Holder and others have done to give a helping hand to our African Americans.

Damn I forgot about this .. saw some comments after PBO's speech whining about the War on Drugs.. like this never happened..

"Obama announces the end of the war on drugs - anyone notice?"

http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/04/obama-announces-end-of-war-on-drugs.html

This over from smartypants' blog..

I'm really glad that Spandan over at The People's View wrote a response to Tavis Smiley yesterday giving him a list of what President Obama has done for African Americans. But I see that Cornel West has (of course) joined Smiley's bandwagon this morning by suggesting that Barack Obama is some "johnny come lately" to concerns about how the criminal justice system has affected African Americans.

Of course Brother West is wrong. I'd like to take some time to document why.

The problem with these two is that I'm not sure PBO respects them enough to listen anymore.. perhaps thinking he's been at his job long enough to know the best to handle his challenges. And, all they have to offer is that.. he's too slow and too late.. while they sputter away doing damn nothing but sputtering.

Mahalo she and smartypants!

[sheshe2]

7. Bingo Cha. You nailed it.

The problem with these two is that I'm not sure PBO respects them enough to listen anymore.. perhaps thinking he's been at his job long enough to know the best to handle his challenges. And, all they have to offer is that.. he's too slow and too late.. while they sputter away doing damn nothing but sputtering.

and that is exactly why they are so pissed off.

I forgot about the end of the war on drugs too, Cha. I saw it at her link. That's why it takes me so long to read her posts, I keep following the links.

Thanks Cha

[IrishAyes]

10. Hey! I was gonna say that!

Well, maybe great minds think alike.

Although as usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short.

[freshwest]

2. This was part of what I was going to post on Holder, so here's an add:

Attorney General Eric Holder at the NAACP

Published on Jul 16, 2013

Attorney General Eric Holder addresses the 104th Annual NAACP Convention in Orlando, Florida on 07/16/13 and discusses the Trayvon Martin verdict.

His critics don't realize that there is anything going on in the nation outside their own narrow views. There is are reasons Libertarians hate Holder, but Democrats and the disenfranchised love him.

This man has been standing up for those in need for most of his life, this is a tiny part of the fabric of his life. Just like the critics of Perez, they don't acknowledge the powerful changes wrought by these men.

Biden and Holder have worked since Day One to change the unfairness in charging and penalties by police and lack of representation for the poor in this country in courts. A little history, that shows a life of commitment:



The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

When Alabama Gov. George Wallace positioned himself defiantly at the entrance to a University of Alabama gymnasium, he created a moment and phrase that still echoes half a century later.

His "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" was an attempt to keep African-Americans out of the state's flagship university in Tuscaloosa. The politician, who had vowed "Segregation now, Segregation tomorrow, Segregation forever," provided one of the most dramatic moments of the 1960s when he tried to block two students from enrolling at the University of Alabama...

The two students who confronted Wallace, Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood, arrived at the university's Foster Auditorium on the morning of June 11, 1963, to register for classes. They were escorted by U.S. deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach with the support of the Alabama National Guard, which had been federalized that day by President Kennedy...

In another surprising twist, her younger sister married an attorney, named Eric Holder, who went on to become the first African-American Attorney General of the United States. Holder, who attended the dedication ceremony honoring his late sister-in-law, said nothing to reporters that day, knowing, it seems, that her achievement helped lead to his decades later. But happy endings were hardly assured after the confrontation at Foster Auditorium. The next day, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, Miss., and many (including President Kennedy and his brother, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy), feared violence might spread across the South...

More and a video at the link:

http://civilrightstravel.com/tuscaloosa.html



Vivian Malone Jones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Malone_Jones

Eric Holder has worked on many issues important to progressives. He supports the view of the 2nd Amendment that has existed among liberals since FDR. That earned him many enemies and the bogus Fast and Furious charges by Darryl Issa.

A clear look at the total man reveals more about him than the media disinformation about him. As shown above, Holder does not crave the spotlight, but keeps working. He has been working hard for Americans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder

[freshwest]

3. I will also add this about the Obama Administration and how it ties much of my life together:

Last edited Tue Jul 23, 2013, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Rosa Parks in 1955, with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the background

Rosa Parks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

Rosa Parks - The Story Behind the Bus

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American woman who worked as a seamstress, boarded this Montgomery City bus to go home from work. On this bus on that day, Rosa Parks initiated a new era in the American quest for freedom and equality.

She sat near the middle of the bus, just behind the 10 seats reserved for whites. Soon all of the seats in the bus were filled. When a white man entered the bus, the driver (following the standard practice of segregation) insisted that all four blacks sitting just behind the white section give up their seats so that the man could sit there. Mrs. Parks, who was an active member of the local NAACP, quietly refused to give up her seat.

Her action was spontaneous and not pre-meditated, although her previous civil rights involvement and strong sense of justice were obvious influences. "When I made that decision," she said later, “I knew that I had the strength of my ancestors with me.”

She was arrested and convicted of violating the laws of segregation, known as “Jim Crow laws.” Mrs. Parks appealed her conviction and thus formally challenged the legality of segregation.

http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/rosaparks/story.asp



That was how the bus I rode to school looked. See the back seat. I'll mention that later. Rosa Parks' story upset me, as I was taught that a man or a young person should give up their seat on a bus to an older person or a woman. An expression of the stronger protecting the weaker. I'm sure that sounds ancient now.

I was angry that she was ordered to give up her seat for a man, she being an older woman. As being 42 years old was elderly from my perspective, then, but not now. I fumed to myself about why she was not shown the courtesy and respect that I showed people.

Later as black riders began to sit at the front of the bus, I enjoyed the luxury of going to sit at the long seat at the back of the bus. I smiled there, feeling liberated. The perspective was different, I could see everything.

It felt freer because I was not being confined to my role of being at the front of the bus. You see, whenever a person tries to confine another person, they confine themselves as well.

Like the words of the song:

Right Where It Belongs
by Nine Inch Nails

See the animal in his cage that you built,
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye,
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all, right where it belongs

What if everything around you,
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks,
Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the worlds inside of your head,
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your Gods, all the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?
You could live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
While you're hiding in the trees

What if everything around you,
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks,
Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?

That may seem to be a strange thing to be happy about to some, but most people like to choose their own path.

I remember seeing the fire hoses and dogs set on protestors, the governor of Alabama with his stand in the door fuss, and then the murder of Medgar Evers. That shocked me more than anything else that had happened yet.

My father and I were working in our front yard, then I looked out at the street, bringing the image of a man who had just arrived home in joy to report the words of JFK to his family. The killers shot him in his front yard, in front of his family. It was obscene. I asked if someone would come to kill us in our yard, too.

I grew up in what was largely a segregrated world, with more safety nets. I never saw blacks as a threat, neither did my family and they told me a lot of history as the events of those days were being presented to the world through thne media, school, community meetings, and people we knew. We were being taught at school 'how the world works' in elementary school, even voting for some things, including the 1960 election in class. It was part of being a grown up, politics were.

The death of Evers and all that followed are seared into my heart and mind. All for the insanity of not allowing black people a seat at a lunch counter. or a seat on the bus or the right to vote.



I don't want to go back to that world again.

[sheshe2]

6. Alabama in the 60's.

That is a lot of painful history to view through the eyes of a child, freshwest. I can understand why your life would have been painfully impacted. You saw it first hand. I only watched it unfold from the television screen.


I don't want to go back there either.

[freshwest]

8. Oh, no, it was television for me as well. Saw Oswald gunned down live on screen, too.

Guess I should have added that. I saw other stuff, anyway, that brought it all home. Plenty of Confederate flags, KKK, JBS, CCC, things like that were discussed openly in my world. You know what they say about children hearing things. I sure did hear a lot, and am glad that my folks were against itr publicly. But you also learn patience and that you have to pick your battles to go forward. The attitude that you can just spit in the faces of armed and vicious people in real life doesn't match the situation. You have to live through something to overcome it.

[sheshe2]

9. Morning freshwest.

You're up early. I'm getting ready for work here.

It was bad enough watching from our TV's, wasn't it freshwest.

So glad I didn't have to view any Confederate Flags or KKK here. Thank god for growing up in the North East!

You're right.
"You have to live through something to overcome it."

[sheshe2]

5. Amazing background

on Eric Holder. What a twist indeed. Vivian Malone Jones younger sister would grow up and marry our first African American Attorney General.

It is sad that so many don't take the time to look beyond the color of his skin when they judge him.

He was the first black American U.S. Attorney in that office.[7] At the beginning of his tenure, he oversaw the conclusion of the corruption case against Dan Rostenkowski, part of the Congressional Post Office scandal.[9] He was a U.S. Attorney until his elevation to Deputy Attorney General in 1997. Holder also served on The George Washington University's Board of Trustees in 1996 and 1997.

While D.C. v. Heller was being heard by the Supreme Court in 2008, Holder joined the Reno-led amicus brief, which urged the Supreme Court to uphold Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and said the position of the Department of Justice, from Franklin Roosevelt through Clinton, was that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to a State's operation of a well-regulated militia.[25] Holder said that overturning the 1976 law "opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder

He has worked hard for the American People. Thank you for giving me some pieces of his history that I was not familiar with.
I will book mark the video for later. Thanks freshwest.

[grantcart]

4. The most important civil rights move in the last 20 years was the President stopping ICE

from raiding law abiding undocumented workers and to focus on illegal aliens with criminal connections.

[IrishAyes]

11. Something new to learn every day around here.

Thank you, each and every one.