Sheriff's remarks called 'overtly racist'

[Keseys Ghost]

From the Times-Picayune:

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain's statements about the suspects in a recent quadruple murder near Slidell amount to racial profiling that broadly paints Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans as "thugs" and "trash," the American Civil Liberties Union said in an open letter to the sheriff.

Strain countered that the ACLU is distorting his comments, which he said were intended to warn St. Tammany residents about early signs of post-Katrina "spillover crime" from New Orleans...

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/115234027460150.xml&coll=1




GREATER COVINGTON NAACP PRESS CONFERENCE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: July 10, 2006

TIME: 9:00 AM (CST)

PLACE: ST.TAMMANY PARISH JUSTICE CENTER
701 NORTH COLUMBIA STREET
COVINGTON, LOUISIANA

SUBJECT: A RESPONSE TO RECENT STATEMENTS MADE TO THE PRESS BY ST. TAMMANY PARISH SHERIFF RODNEY "JACK" STRAIN, JR.

NARRATIVE: President Annie Spell of the Greater Covington Branch NAACP will hold a press conference on Monday morning in front of the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center at 9:00 am to respond to Sheriff Jack Strain's recent public comments, particularly with respect to the following statements:

"If you plan to walk the streets of St. Tammany Parish with 'chee weez' and 'dread locks' you can expect to be questioned by sheriff's deputies," (St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack) Strain said Thursday. http://www.thesttammanynews.com/articles/2...news/news01.txt

Jack Strain's remark that defense attorneys, or “slick lawyers” who represent defendants, “…in my opinion, that’s the first people we should put on a rail and get out of here.” http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/0...riff-of-racism/


Annie Spell, President
Greater Covington NAACP

[EFerrari]

1. I hope those "slick lawyers" NAIL this guy. K&R

:kick:

[pepperbear]

2. k and r here too

[Swamp Rat]

3. k&r

[lonestarnot]

18. I feel a greenie comin' on!

:woohoo: Swampie!

[EFerrari]

23. We can hope!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[lonestarnot]

44. Yes! Always hoping for more!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[U4ikLefty]

4. Damn, Annie Spell is wearing a wedding band...oh well

the search goes on!!!

[EFerrari]

5. Be a good sport and rec the OP.

:hi:

[U4ikLefty]

8. Sorry...damn me & my weaknesses,lol!!! To be sure, I agree with the

sentiment that it was a pretty racist thing to say. I had lived for a number of years in an area of Long Beach where Dreads are/were commonplace...and this sterotype is just plain wrong!!!

[EFerrari]

9. Btw, LINK TV is running "Orwell Rolls In His Grave". I just saw

Greg Pallast point out that in FL 2000, black votes got spoiled 1 in 8, where white votes were spoiled 1 in 200.

:wow:

/sorry, corrected to "200"

[Keseys Ghost]

14. Never mind...

[uppityperson]

25. hahaha (k&r)

bet Iknow what you deleted. Good thing to delete.
Go Annie and Keseys Ghost.

[EFerrari]

26. Restraint is a quality or skill I deeply admire.

:)

on edit: having so little of my own. lol

[uppityperson]

28. !

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

29. So good to see you in good spirits, uppityperson.

:)

[uppityperson]

30. Thanks, it happens sometimes, got to appreciate it when it does

Nice to see good people here today. Now, to finish up and go sit in the sun!

[Keseys Ghost]

33. Don't mistake "restraint" for just plain old "slick"

...and the band played on....

[EFerrari]

34. I never would.

:)

[uppityperson]

35. Beware those rails though

UPJr asked about you recently, said to say hi (met you last Aug). Took him down your way spring break, was quite impressed. Called me last wk while driving to Big City, said he went by a burnt house that hit him in the gut, hadn't realized how much spring break had affected him. Onward for another librul uppityperson!

[EFerrari]

39. Onward! I scored 2 of 2 in my sons, They would not please

Bill O'Reilly.

Ot: I was only ever in NOLA once and had the strangest sense of finally being in the right place. The elephant ears, the weather, the knowing that the sea was fighting back. Dunno what it was. I have been thinking very very seriously of NOLA as a place I'd like to be.

[H2O Man]

6. There is a case

in Owego, NY, that is not getting much media attention. The now "ex-" police chief told a number of locals that two businessmen were connected to Usama bin Ladin, simply because they were Arab-Americans, and the chief didn't like Arab-Americans. Long story short, the businessmen won a civil case against Owego, and the chief recently was put out to pasture.

Many of the gains that so many fought and died for in the 1950s and '60s are being lost today.

[EFerrari]

7. 'Morning, H2O Man. Have you read "Dark Ages America"?

It discusses, in part, why our culture is moving in the present direction.

[H2O Man]

13. Good morning.

I have not read it. But I'm hoping to get to a good book store soon, to stock up on some reading material for the summer months. One of the things I like best about DU is people recommending good books. I appreciate that. Thank you!

[EFerrari]

17. It pairs nicely with "The Plot Against America" by Roth.

My son gave me those for the last holiday. You're welcome.

[DerBeppo]

20. How can you say they're being lost

when those men won a civil case and forced the chief out of his job? There are ALWAYS going to be racists, idiots and those who look to satisfy a personal agenda when they are given power, but this case actually shows how FAR we've come since then. Can you imagine them winning anything in the 50's?

[EFerrari]

22. When black votes get spoiled 1 in 8 in a presidential election,

when brown men who "look Muslim" are thrown into secret jails on our soil, when Latinos in L.A. get stopped by a factor of 5 times more often than white people, we have a problem.

We might be doing better than we did in 1955, the year I was born, but we're not doing better than we did in 1968, the year they killed Bobby Kennedy. There is a sliding back into the racist history of this country that is actually chilling.

During the Katrina fiasco (because the actual disaster probably killed fewer people than the incompetence -- we'll never know) this whole country watched days of black people starving and thirsting.

What was their response?

:(

/oops

[H2O Man]

53. I would assume

that you recognize that this case is not an isolated example of such behavior. I can say advances are being lost, because I have been here since those 1950s you mention.

[EFerrari]

10. Kick

[itzamirakul]

11. K & R

Yeah, sure...there is no racism in America. Why don't those black people just go get a job? :sarcasm: Even though they are the last hired and first fired?

The lousiest, lowest, drunkest,drug-taking,meth-using, unwashed white supremacist is allowed to run around the hills of America playing militia and practicing with weapons for the so-called race war that they want to start, while some African Americans in a southern state are told that they will be intimidated and investigated for wearing certain hair styles.

And there is no outrage from the general populace of the Democratic community.Which proves that the great majority of our party either wouldn't recognize racism if it slapped them in the face.

[EFerrari]

12. If you go look at LBN there's an article about the "terrorist" threat

along the southern border on the same page with an article about the high number of Latinos in the Army.

It's just dizzying.

[nashville_brook]

15. k n r -- see yesterday's discussion for an eye-opening adventure

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1579427&mesg_id=1579427

[EFerrari]

16. Wow That's just disgusting. n/t

[AirAmFan]

19. Some Louisiana sheriffs SELL slave-like inmate labor to private farmers,

manufacturers, segregation academies, white churches, etc. throughout their counties. It's no wonder these sheriffs openly express Nazi-style prejudices that would justify to themselves daily human rights violations worthy of Nuremburg trials.

From a NY Times story at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/us/05prisoners.html?hp&ex=1152158400&en=f70b12f4db047912&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"With Jobs to Do, Louisiana Parish Turns to Inmates

By ADAM NOSSITER; Published: July 5, 2006

LAKE PROVIDENCE, La. „ At barbecues, ballgames and funerals, cotton gins, service stations, the First Baptist Church, the pepper-sauce factory and the local private school „ the men in orange are everywhere. Many people here in East Carroll Parish, as Louisiana counties are known, say they could not get by without their inmates, who make up more than 10 percent of its population and most of its labor force. They are dirt-cheap, sometimes free, always compliant, ever-ready and disposable.

YOU JUST CALL UP THE SHERIFF, AND PRESTO, INMATES ARE HEADED YOUR WAY. "They bring me warm bodies, 10 warm bodies in the morning," said Grady Brown, owner of the Panola Pepper Corporation. "They do anything you ask them to do." It is an ideal arrangement, many in this farming parish say.

"You call them up, they drop them off, and they pick them up in the afternoon," said Paul Chapple, owner of a service station. National prison experts say that only Louisiana allows citizens to use inmate labor on such a widespread scale, under the supervision of local sheriffs. The state has the nation's highest incarceration rate, and East Carroll Parish, a forlorn jurisdiction of 8,700 people along the Mississippi River in the remote northeastern corner of Louisiana, has one of the highest rates in the state...."

[EFerrari]

21. I think this may be a secret of our prison system because it's

the same in California. That's our biggest lobby according to Joan Didion in "Where I Was From."

You pair that with racial profiling and the disproportionate number of minority inmates and it starts looking like an economic policy.

[itzamirakul]

24. The chain gang revisited? nt

[uppityperson]

27. your link doesn't work, here it is to the video

http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/07/06/sheriff-of-racism/trackback/
Very funny, run you slick lawyers out on a rail. Interesting video. Bluntspoken sheriff. Good luck you guys.

[Keseys Ghost]

32. Wild Thing! You make my heart sing!

A very smart guy and long time activist told me something last night during a conference call which I wanted to share:

"Without a Bull Conner, we might never have heard of Martin King. A Jack Strain may be very much a blessing to the civil rights movement in these tough times."

"You make everything...groovy"!

[EFerrari]

36. For focus? For packaging for cosumers? n/t

[uppityperson]

37. To get it blatantly before the public's eye? nt

[Keseys Ghost]

38. "Poster Boy" was the term I heard from another participant on the call

Racial profiling is endemic across America, but rarely is it stated policy.

[uppityperson]

40. Interesting reading yesterday's postings on this.

Of course he is racist. Many many people are. He is just openly racist. Do you think he is doing an ok job there (aside from the profiling)?

[EFerrari]

42. How can you be doing an okay job if you automatically

consider some people guilty?

:silly:

[uppityperson]

43. Compared with the alternatives.

Choice of bad or much worse?

It was interesting, visiting the deep south. I was used to more hidden/subtle racism and the in-your-face stuff really threw me for a while. Since I was used to the hidden type, I kept expecting there to be more. It was rather striking to have it be so blatant that yes, people really didn't like me based on 1 factor, and yes, they were willing to tell me/show me.

[EFerrari]

45. I visited a NOLA friend once. She was completely

freaked out because I left the lovely second floor double windows open one hot, humid night. She was afraid of black people, not of random burglars. But, she was beside herself and never said out loud exactly what she meant.

I had and have very little or no way to understand this because all the racial fears I grew up with were against Latinos. I always understood racism as a resentment against new immigrants. My experience was limited to one of those planned white suburbs where my mother *was* the person of color.

Fuck these people.

[uppityperson]

46. Racism is fear, combined with desire for control, leading to power struggl

I don't notice men with dark skins because 1 parent has also (I inherited the eastern european skin of other parent, not India of 1st). I am amazed when I suddenly notice 1 (colin powell, barry bonds were 2 I didn't notice for a long time). My easter european grandparent had a really hard time during WWI and II due to accent and mannerisms.


Mr.UP was raised in CA city, said he knew he would prejudge blacks due to fear of being beaten up which was impressed upon him as a child. I asked if he had been beaten up, he said only by white guys, which made him stop and think.

[EFerrari]

48. Racism is projection, a mechanism which makes you unable

to actually SEE because even your senses can be hijacked.

A lot like people react to gays or women or anyone or thing that challenges them.

And, now we have Der Junior speaking carefully written code as his thugs shred our lightly applied Bill of Rights.

Buckle up.

[uppityperson]

49. That too. Fearful projection?

:toast: Off to garden, catch you later! Oh yes, and to see if I can get into Pirates movie. Bye :hi:

[EFerrari]

50. You, UP, are right because fear triggers projection.

Enjoy the garden!

:hi:

[EFerrari]

41. This country was only possible because of racism.

Last night listening to "Orwell Spins in His Grave" and listening to my near friend Mark Crispin Miller say, the founders had no intention to give transnational corporations civil rights, I began to wonder if imperialism/colonialism isn't at the sweet tender root of racism, instead of the other way around.

The people over the hill are always "those snakes" but, this is a whole different order of magnitude.

I'm thankful for your work, Kesey, because this is the real "war on terror" that we are facing.

:kick:

[Reckon]

52. You got that right.

[Cleita]

31. K&R

[UDenver20]

47. would they be acceptable if only "a little racist" ????

Good lord...

[EFerrari]

51. Not. Our people didn't redden up the civil rights fields

for us to sit back for THIS HORRIBLE SH!T.

[greiner3]

54. You think the sheriff's a Republican? Or a nazi?

[EFerrari]

55. Can't rule out over acheiving Indy

who is just completely insane.

[EFerrari]

56. Kick

[uppityperson]

57. 1 kick for the night shift.