Les Européens disent maintenant au revoir à M. Bush, et espèrent l’élection d’un président américain qui partage, le croient-ils, leurs attitudes sophistiquées de postnationalisme, post-modernisme et multiculturalisme. Mais ne soyez pas étonné si, afin de protéger la liberté et la démocratie chez eux dans les années à venir, les dirigeants européens commencent à ressembler de plus en plus au cowboy à la gâchette facile de l’étranger qu’ils se délectent aujourd’hui à fustiger. Natan Sharansky
Il n’y a rien de plus douloureux pour moi à ce stade de ma vie que de marcher dans la rue, d’entendre un pas derrière moi, de penser que quelqu’un veut me voler, et en regardant autour de moi, de me sentir soulagé s’il s’agit d’un Blanc. Après tout ce que nous avons traversé. Juste de penser que nous ne pouvons pas marcher dans nos propres rues, quelle humiliation ! Jesse Jackson (1993)
On appelle cela « l’effet Ferguson » : des policiers mis en cause après la mort d’un homme noir, entraînant une sorte de dépression collective. Leurs collègues hésiteraient désormais à procéder à des arrestations, tétanisés à l’idée de devenir les acteurs involontaires de vidéos virales. Résultat : ils ne font plus leur travail et le taux de criminalité est en hausse. C’est la théorie du directeur du FBI. James Comey le reconnaît, il s’appuie sur son intuition, car aucune statistique fédérale n’existe aux Etats-Unis, ni sur le crime en général, ni sur les personnes tuées par la police. Les seules données disponibles sont compilées par des associations ou des journaux. RFI
Il y a un an, quelques personnalités se risquèrent à nommer le phénomène, mais sans avoir les preuves statistiques à l’appui. L’un des protagonistes fut James Comey, le directeur du FBI : comment croire à sa parole dans la mesure où il représente le pouvoir policier ? Obama s’en était ému et avait dénoncé cette funeste théorie : non, les protestations de Black Lives Matter n’avaient eu aucun impact sur le comportement des forces de police. La théorie de l’Effet Ferguson posait en effet que comme les policiers avaient été stigmatisés, ils n’osaient plus prendre de risques, de peur d’être accusés de bavures. Plutôt que de risquer le scandale, ils passeraient désormais leur chemin autant que possible, pour ne pas se trouver au milieu d’une fusillade où ils auraient à sévir par balle. En conséquence, les voyous se tirent dessus sans que plus personne ne les arrête.Rosenfeld, un criminologue réputé qui s’était d’abord opposé à cette théorie, vient de retourner sa veste après avoir épluché les chiffres. Les hypothèses de base ne fonctionnent pas pour expliquer une telle flambée de violence. Sur les 56 plus grandes villes des États-Unis, les homicides ont augmenté de 17% entre 2014 et 2015. Les deux tiers de l’augmentation se concentrent sur une dizaine de villes, celles où les afro-américains représentent une plus large part de la population : Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington, Nashville, Philadelphia, Kansas City et St Louis. Le saut d’homicides y est de +41% sur un an ! François Desouche
La chaîne de télévision australienne Channel 7 a diffusé ce samedi la vidéo d’une femme en burkini se faisant « chasser » d’une plage de Villeneuve-Loubet par des baigneurs. Selon un témoin, la scène est montée de toute pièce. Selon une vidéo diffusée par une chaîne de la télévision australienne, Zeynab Alshelh, une étudiante de 23 ans, aurait été forcée de quitter une plage de Villeneuve-Loubet où elle s’était installée. En cause? Son burkini, jugé provocateur par d’autres baigneurs. L’histoire a été reprise par tous les médias et notamment par l’AFP. Mais selon une mère de famille qui se trouvait sur la plage à ce moment-là, la scène qui s’est déroulée sous ses yeux était plus que suspecte. « Nous étions installés sur la plage avec mes enfants, quand nous avons vu la caméra débarquer à quelques mètres de nous, explique-t-elle. Ce n’est qu’après qu’un homme et deux femmes en burkini sont arrivés. Ils ont marché quelques minutes le long de la plage, puis sont venus s’installer juste devant l’équipe télé ». Alors, un coup monté? « On s’est immédiatement posé la question. C’est d’ailleurs pour ça que tous les gens sur la plage regardent dans la direction de la caméra. » Mais la vidéo diffusée par la chaîne australienne va plus loin. On y voit un homme se diriger vers la caméra et lâcher: « Vous faites demi-tour et vous partez ». Tel qu’est monté le reportage, cette invective semble dirigée à l’encontre des deux femmes en burkini. Une impression appuyée par la voix off de la vidéo qui confirme: « Nous avons été forcés de partir, car les gens ont dit qu’ils allaient appeler la police. » Mais il n’en est rien. « L’homme sur la vidéo est mon oncle, atteste notre témoin. Il n’a jamais demandé à ce que ces trois personnes quittent la plage. Il s’adressait à la caméra pour demander au cameraman de partir. Il y avait des enfants sur la plage, dont les nôtres, et on ne voulait pas qu’ils soient filmés. » La suite de la vidéo montre le même homme en train de téléphoner. « Oui, il appelait la police. Pas pour les faire intervenir pour chasser ces personnes, mais pour demander comment on pouvait faire pour empêcher la caméra de nous filmer, surtout nos enfants ». Et d’ajouter: « A aucun moment des gens sont venus demander aux femmes en burkini de quitter la plage. » Une version corroborée par un autre témoin de la scène. « On voyait que c’était scénarisé, c’était trop gros pour être vrai et ça puait le coup monté », raconte Stéphane. Ce père de famille était dans l’eau avec ses enfants, au niveau de la plage privée Corto Maltese, quand il a vu débarquer la petite équipe sur la plage. « L’homme et les deux femmes sont arrivés presque en courant pour s’installer. En 10 secondes, ils avaient déplié leurs serviettes et planté leur parasol. Ils se sont mis en plein milieu du couloir à jet-ski de la plage privée. Comme ils gênaient, le propriétaire de la plage est sorti leur demander de se pousser. » Ce n’est qu’après que Stéphane aperçoit la journaliste et son cameraman « planqués » derrière les voitures, en train de filmer. Il raconte qu’à ce moment-là, le propriétaire de la plage a fait entrer le petit groupe dans son restaurant. « Ils sont ressortis au bout d’un moment. L’homme et les deux femmes ont continué à marcher le long de la plage en direction de la Siesta. Des fois, ils se posaient. Puis ils repartaient. » Le journaliste et le cameraman, qui avaient fait mine de partir, étaient en fait toujours cachés derrière les voitures. « On aurait dit qu’ils attendaient des réactions ». Stéphane assistera de loin à la scène du baigneur qui pressera les journalistes de quitter les lieux. « J’ai vu ce monsieur au téléphone. Mais j’étais trop loin pour entendre ce qu’il disait. » Le petit groupe finira par quitter les lieux. « Il y avait un véhicule qui les attendait en haut de la plage, comme pour les exfiltrer au cas où… » Nice-Matin
The Seven Network and the pugnacious Muslim Aussie family it flew to the French Riviera with the aim of provoking beachgoers into a “racist” reaction to the “Aussie cossie” burkini owe the traumatised people of Nice and France a swift apology. The cynical stunt pulled by the Sunday Night program, where it spirited Sydney hijab-proselytising medical student Zeynab Alshelh and her activist parents off to a beach near Nice to “show solidarity” with (radically conservative) Muslims, featured the 23-year-old flaunting her burkini in an obvious attempt to bait Gallic sun lovers into religious and ethnically motivated hatred. Except according to the French people filmed against their will, the claimed “chasing off the beach” that made international headlines never occurred because Seven used hidden camera tactics, selective editing and deliberate distortion to reach its predetermined conclusions. (…) The manipulation is the latest example of calculated French-bashing fuelled by collusion between the goals of political Islam and compliant media outlets seeking culture clash cliches. (…) No one was hounded off the beach, despite the scripted whining of Seven’s solemn-faced presenter Rahni Sadler and her well-rehearsed talent the Alshelhs. The swimming public were upset to see the camera crew filming them and their children without permission in a country where privacy is legally protected and paparazzi do not have the same rights as they do in Australia to film without consent. (…) The shameful Seven report went viral globally thanks to an international media thirsty for stereotypes about France’s unsubstantiated rising tide of Islamophobia. It was dishonest sensationalism that deliberately skewed complex issues surrounding secularism a la francaise and surging religious fundamentalism of the Islamist variety in the context of ever-present terrorist threats and a state of emergency. The Australian
C’est avec un chapelet et une croix autour du cou que Marina Nalesso, présentatrice du journal télévisée de 13h30 à la télévision publique italienne, la Rai, un des plus regardés, a dirigé dernièrement son programme d’informations. Elle le fait, a-t-elle-expliqué à Fanpage « par foi et pour rendre témoignage. » Ces dernières semaines des centaines de messages louangeurs et d’estime ont fleuri sur Facebook. Mais elle a été aussi attaquée violemment par des athées, des musulmans ou des laïcs convaincus. Un lynchage auquel a pris part également un conseiller de Turin appartenant au Parti Démocrate au pourvoir actuellement, Silvio Viale. Medias-Presse-info
Un homme armé a tué vendredi soir quatre femmes et un homme dans un centre commercial de l’Etat de Washington, dans le nord-ouest des Etats-Unis. Après 24 heures de cavale, le suspect, Arcan Cetin, 20 ans, né en Turquie, a été arrêté. (…) Le FBI, la police fédérale, a fait savoir qu’il n’y avait à ce stade aucun indice d’ « acte terroriste ». Le Figaro
L’avenir ne doit pas appartenir à ceux qui calomnient le prophète de l’Islam. Barack Obama (siège de l’ONU, New York, 26.09.12)
Je crois qu’en ce moment nous sommes tous confrontés à un choix. Nous pouvons choisir d’aller de l’avant avec un meilleur modèle de coopération et d’intégration. Ou nous pouvons nous retirer dans un monde profondément divisé, et finalement en conflit, sur lignes séculaires de la nation et de la tribu et de la race et la religion. (…) Et comme ces vrais problèmes ont été négligés, d’autres visions du monde sont avancées à la fois dans les pays les plus riches et les plus pauvres: fondamentalisme religieux, politiques tribales, ethniques, sectaires, populisme grossier venu parfois de l’extrême gauche mais le plus souvent de l’extrême droite qui cherche à revenir à un temps jugé meilleur et plus simple.(…) Compte tenu de la difficulté qu’il y a à forger une véritable démocratie (…), il n’est pas surprenant que certains soutiennent que l’avenir appartient aux hommes forts, aux verticales du pouvoir plutôt qu’aux institutions fortes et démocratiques. (…) Nous voyons la Russie tenter de récupérer la gloire perdue par la force ; des puissances asiatiques vouloir revenir sur des revendications soldées par l’Histoire ; et en Europe et aux États-Unis, des gens s’inquiéter de l’immigration et de l’évolution démographique en laissant entendre que d’une certaine manière les gens qui apparaissent comme différents corrompent le caractère de nos pays. Barack Hussein Obama (ONU, 20 septembre 2016)
Vous allez dans certaines petites villes de Pennsylvanie où, comme dans beaucoup de petites villes du Middle West, les emplois ont disparu depuis maintenant 25 ans et n’ont été remplacés par rien d’autre (…) Et il n’est pas surprenant qu’ils deviennent amers et qu’ils s’accrochent à leurs fusils ou à la religion, ou à leur antipathie pour ceux qui ne sont pas comme eux, ou encore à un sentiment d’hostilité envers les immigrants. Barack Obama
Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. Barack Obama
Je ne peux qu’imaginer ce qu’endurent ses parents. Et quand je pense à ce garçon, je pense à mes propres enfants. Si j’avais un fils, il ressemblerait à Trayvon. Obama
Et, bien sûr, ce qui est également la routine est que quelqu’un, quelque part, va commenter et dire, Obama a politisé cette question. Eh bien, cela est quelque chose que nous devrions politiser. Il est pertinent de notre vie commune ensemble, le corps politique. Obama
Mon nom ne sera peut-être pas sur les bulletins de vote, mais notre progrès dépend de ce bulletin de vote. Je le prendrai comme une insulte personnelle, une insulte à mon héritage si la communauté afro-américaine baisse la garde et ne s’active pas lors de ces élections. Vous voulez m’adresser des adieux chaleureux ? Alors allez voter. Barack Hussein Obama (devant la fondation du Caucus noir du Congrès)
Pour généraliser, en gros, vous pouvez placer la moitié des partisans de Trump dans ce que j’appelle le panier des pitoyables. Les racistes, sexistes, homophobes, xénophobes, islamophobes. A vous de choisir. Hillary Clinton
Je ne vais pas afficher de fierté pour le drapeau d’un pays qui opprime les Noirs. Colin Kaepernick
C’est vraiment dégoûtant la façon dont il a été traité, la façon dont les médias ont traité cette affaire, dira-t-elle après la partie. Étant homosexuelle, je sais ce que veut dire regarder le drapeau américain en étant consciente qu’il ne protège pas toutes les libertés. Megan Rapinoe
Le joueur de football américain Colin Kaepernick, au cour d’une polémique aux Etats-Unis depuis qu’il boycotte l’hymne américain avant les matches de son équipe, est à la Une du prestigieux hebdomadaire américain Time, un honneur rare pour un sportif. Le quarterback des San Francisco 49ers apparaît, en couverture du magazine publié mercredi, un genou posé à terre, geste qu’il utilise lors de l’hymne américain pour protester contre l’oppression dont est victime, selon lui, la communauté noire aux Etats-Unis, en référence aux bavures policières visant des noirs ces derniers mois. La photo de Kaepernick est accompagnée du titre « Le combat périlleux ». Son boycott a fait tache d’huile au sein de la Ligue nationale de football américain (NFL) mais aussi dans d’autres sports, comme le football et le basket: toutes les joueuses de l’équipe d’Indiana ont ainsi posé un genou à terre mercredi lors de l’hymne américain, joué traditionnellement avant toutes les rencontres sportives aux Etats-Unis. Kaepernick, qui affirme avoir reçu des menaces de mort, est loin de faire l’unanimité au sein de la population américaine. Selon un sondage publié mercredi par la chaîne de télévision ESPN, il est désormais le joueur de NFL le moins apprécié pour 29% des 1100 personnes interrogées. AFP
Savez-vous que les Noirs sont 10 pour cent de la population de Saint-Louis et sont responsables de 58% de ses crimes? Nous avons à faire face à cela. Et nous devons faire quelque chose au sujet de nos normes morales. Nous savons qu’il y a beaucoup de mauvaises choses dans le monde blanc, mais il y a aussi beaucoup de mauvaises choses dans le monde noir. Nous ne pouvons pas continuer à blâmer l’homme blanc. Il y a des choses que nous devons faire pour nous-mêmes. Martin Luther King (St Louis, 1961)
The absurdity of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teenagers, not whites. … Trayvon’s sad fate clearly sent a quiver of perverse happiness all across America’s civil rights establishment, and throughout the mainstream media as well. His death was vindication of the ‘poetic truth’ that these establishments live by. Shelby Steele
Before the 1960s the black American identity (though no one ever used the word) was based on our common humanity, on the idea that race was always an artificial and exploitive division between people. After the ’60s—in a society guilty for its long abuse of us—we took our historical victimization as the central theme of our group identity. We could not have made a worse mistake. It has given us a generation of ambulance-chasing leaders, and the illusion that our greatest power lies in the manipulation of white guilt. Shelby Steele
But what about all the other young black murder victims? Nationally, nearly half of all murder victims are black. And the overwhelming majority of those black people are killed by other black people. Where is the march for them? Where is the march against the drug dealers who prey on young black people? Where is the march against bad schools, with their 50% dropout rate for black teenaged boys? Those failed schools are certainly guilty of creating the shameful 40% unemployment rate for black teens? How about marching against the cable television shows constantly offering minstrel-show images of black youth as rappers and comedians who don’t value education, dismiss the importance of marriage, and celebrate killing people, drug money and jailhouse fashion—the pants falling down because the jail guard has taken away the belt, the shoes untied because the warden removed the shoe laces, and accessories such as the drug dealer’s pit bull. (…) There is no fashion, no thug attitude that should be an invitation to murder. But these are the real murderous forces surrounding the Martin death—and yet they never stir protests. The race-baiters argue this case deserves special attention because it fits the mold of white-on-black violence that fills the history books. Some have drawn a comparison to the murder of Emmett Till, a black boy who was killed in 1955 by white racists for whistling at a white woman. (…) While civil rights leaders have raised their voices to speak out against this one tragedy, few if any will do the same about the larger tragedy of daily carnage that is black-on-black crime in America. (…) Almost one half of the nation’s murder victims that year were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation’s murders. And 93% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, according to the same report. (…) The killing of any child is a tragedy. But where are the protests regarding the larger problems facing black America? Juan Williams
« More whites are killed by the police than blacks primarily because whites outnumber blacks in the general population by more than five to one, » Forst said. The country is about 63 percent white and 12 percent black. (…) A 2002 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that the death rate due to legal intervention was more than three times higher for blacks than for whites in the period from 1988 to 1997. (…) Candace McCoy is a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. McCoy said blacks might be more likely to have a violent encounter with police because they are convicted of felonies at a higher rate than whites. Felonies include everything from violent crimes like murder and rape, to property crimes like burglary and embezzlement, to drug trafficking and gun offenses. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that in 2004, state courts had over 1 million felony convictions. Of those, 59 percent were committed by whites and 38 percent by blacks. But when you factor in the population of whites and blacks, the felony rates stand at 330 per 100,000 for whites and 1,178 per 100,000 for blacks. That’s more than a three-fold difference. McCoy noted that this has more to do with income than race. The felony rates for poor whites are similar to those of poor blacks. « Felony crime is highly correlated with poverty, and race continues to be highly correlated with poverty in the USA, » McCoy said. « It is the most difficult and searing problem in this whole mess. » PunditFact
America is coming apart. For most of our nation’s history, whatever the inequality in wealth between the richest and poorest citizens, we maintained a cultural equality known nowhere else in the world—for whites, anyway. (…) But t’s not true anymore, and it has been progressively less true since the 1960s. People are starting to notice the great divide. The tea party sees the aloofness in a political elite that thinks it knows best and orders the rest of America to fall in line. The Occupy movement sees it in an economic elite that lives in mansions and flies on private jets. Each is right about an aspect of the problem, but that problem is more pervasive than either political or economic inequality. What we now face is a problem of cultural inequality. When Americans used to brag about « the American way of life »—a phrase still in common use in 1960—they were talking about a civic culture that swept an extremely large proportion of Americans of all classes into its embrace. It was a culture encompassing shared experiences of daily life and shared assumptions about central American values involving marriage, honesty, hard work and religiosity. Over the past 50 years, that common civic culture has unraveled. We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America’s core cultural institutions. (…) Why have these new lower and upper classes emerged? For explaining the formation of the new lower class, the easy explanations from the left don’t withstand scrutiny. It’s not that white working class males can no longer make a « family wage » that enables them to marry. The average male employed in a working-class occupation earned as much in 2010 as he did in 1960. It’s not that a bad job market led discouraged men to drop out of the labor force. Labor-force dropout increased just as fast during the boom years of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as it did during bad years. (…) As I’ve argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration. Changes in social policy during the 1960s made it economically more feasible to have a child without having a husband if you were a woman or to get along without a job if you were a man; safer to commit crimes without suffering consequences; and easier to let the government deal with problems in your community that you and your neighbors formerly had to take care of. But, for practical purposes, understanding why the new lower class got started isn’t especially important. Once the deterioration was under way, a self-reinforcing loop took hold as traditionally powerful social norms broke down. Because the process has become self-reinforcing, repealing the reforms of the 1960s (something that’s not going to happen) would change the trends slowly at best. Meanwhile, the formation of the new upper class has been driven by forces that are nobody’s fault and resist manipulation. The economic value of brains in the marketplace will continue to increase no matter what, and the most successful of each generation will tend to marry each other no matter what. As a result, the most successful Americans will continue to trend toward consolidation and isolation as a class. Changes in marginal tax rates on the wealthy won’t make a difference. Increasing scholarships for working-class children won’t make a difference. The only thing that can make a difference is the recognition among Americans of all classes that a problem of cultural inequality exists and that something has to be done about it. That « something » has nothing to do with new government programs or regulations. Public policy has certainly affected the culture, unfortunately, but unintended consequences have been as grimly inevitable for conservative social engineering as for liberal social engineering. The « something » that I have in mind has to be defined in terms of individual American families acting in their own interests and the interests of their children. Doing that in Fishtown requires support from outside. There remains a core of civic virtue and involvement in working-class America that could make headway against its problems if the people who are trying to do the right things get the reinforcement they need—not in the form of government assistance, but in validation of the values and standards they continue to uphold. The best thing that the new upper class can do to provide that reinforcement is to drop its condescending « nonjudgmentalism. » Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn’t hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices. Charles Murray
The furor of ignored Europeans against their union is not just directed against rich and powerful government elites per se, or against the flood of mostly young male migrants from the war-torn Middle East. The rage also arises from the hypocrisy of a governing elite that never seems to be subject to the ramifications of its own top-down policies. The bureaucratic class that runs Europe from Brussels and Strasbourg too often lectures European voters on climate change, immigration, politically correct attitudes about diversity, and the constant need for more bureaucracy, more regulations, and more redistributive taxes. But Euro-managers are able to navigate around their own injunctions, enjoying private schools for their children; generous public pay, retirement packages and perks; frequent carbon-spewing jet travel; homes in non-diverse neighborhoods; and profitable revolving-door careers between government and business. The Western elite classes, both professedly liberal and conservative, square the circle of their privilege with politically correct sermonizing. They romanticize the distant “other” — usually immigrants and minorities — while condescendingly lecturing the middle and working classes, often the losers in globalization, about their lack of sensitivity. On this side of the Atlantic, President Obama has developed a curious habit of talking down to Americans about their supposedly reactionary opposition to rampant immigration, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and political correctness — most notably in his caricatures of the purported “clingers” of Pennsylvania. Yet Obama seems uncomfortable when confronted with the prospect of living out what he envisions for others. He prefers golfing with celebrities to bowling. He vacations in tony Martha’s Vineyard rather than returning home to his Chicago mansion. His travel entourage is royal and hardly green. And he insists on private prep schools for his children rather than enrolling them in the public schools of Washington, D.C., whose educators he so often shields from long-needed reform. In similar fashion, grandees such as Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos do not live what they profess. They often lecture supposedly less sophisticated Americans on their backward opposition to illegal immigration. But both live in communities segregated from those they champion in the abstract. The Clintons often pontificate about “fairness” but somehow managed to amass a personal fortune of more than $100 million by speaking to and lobbying banks, Wall Street profiteers, and foreign entities. The pay-to-play rich were willing to brush aside the insincere, pro forma social-justice talk of the Clintons and reward Hillary and Bill with obscene fees that would presumably result in lucrative government attention. Consider the recent Orlando tragedy for more of the same paradoxes. The terrorist killer, Omar Mateen — a registered Democrat, proud radical Muslim, and occasional patron of gay dating sites — murdered 49 people and wounded even more in a gay nightclub. His profile and motive certainly did not fit the elite narrative that unsophisticated right-wing American gun owners were responsible because of their support for gun rights. No matter. The Obama administration and much of the media refused to attribute the horror in Orlando to Mateen’s self-confessed radical Islamist agenda. Instead, they blamed the shooter’s semi-automatic .223 caliber rifle and a purported climate of hate toward gays. (…) In sum, elites ignored the likely causes of the Orlando shooting: the appeal of ISIS-generated hatred to some young, second-generation radical Muslim men living in Western societies, and the politically correct inability of Western authorities to short-circuit that clear-cut connection. Instead, the establishment all but blamed Middle America for supposedly being anti-gay and pro-gun. In both the U.S. and Britain, such politically correct hypocrisy is superimposed on highly regulated, highly taxed, and highly governmentalized economies that are becoming ossified and stagnant. The tax-paying middle classes, who lack the romance of the poor and the connections of the elite, have become convenient whipping boys of both in order to leverage more government social programs and to assuage the guilt of the elites who have no desire to live out their utopian theories in the flesh. Victor Davis Hanson
Barack Obama is the Dr. Frankenstein of the supposed Trump monster. If a charismatic, Ivy League-educated, landmark president who entered office with unprecedented goodwill and both houses of Congress on his side could manage to wreck the Democratic Party while turning off 52 percent of the country, then many voters feel that a billionaire New York dealmaker could hardly do worse. If Obama had ruled from the center, dealt with the debt, addressed radical Islamic terrorism, dropped the politically correct euphemisms and pushed tax and entitlement reform rather than Obamacare, Trump might have little traction. A boring Hillary Clinton and a staid Jeb Bush would most likely be replaying the 1992 election between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush — with Trump as a watered-down version of third-party outsider Ross Perot. But America is in much worse shape than in 1992. And Obama has proved a far more divisive and incompetent president than George H.W. Bush. Little is more loathed by a majority of Americans than sanctimonious PC gobbledygook and its disciples in the media. And Trump claims to be PC’s symbolic antithesis. Making Machiavellian Mexico pay for a border fence or ejecting rude and interrupting Univision anchor Jorge Ramos from a press conference is no more absurd than allowing more than 300 sanctuary cities to ignore federal law by sheltering undocumented immigrants. Putting a hold on the immigration of Middle Eastern refugees is no more illiberal than welcoming into American communities tens of thousands of unvetted foreign nationals from terrorist-ridden Syria. In terms of messaging, is Trump’s crude bombast any more radical than Obama’s teleprompted scripts? Trump’s ridiculous view of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a sort of « Art of the Deal » geostrategic partner is no more silly than Obama insulting Putin as Russia gobbles up former Soviet republics with impunity. Obama callously dubbed his own grandmother a « typical white person, » introduced the nation to the racist and anti-Semitic rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and petulantly wrote off small-town Pennsylvanians as near-Neanderthal « clingers. » Did Obama lower the bar for Trump’s disparagements? Certainly, Obama peddled a slogan, « hope and change, » that was as empty as Trump’s « make America great again. » (…) How does the establishment derail an out-of-control train for whom there are no gaffes, who has no fear of The New York Times, who offers no apologies for speaking what much of the country thinks — and who apparently needs neither money from Republicans nor politically correct approval from Democrats? Victor Davis Hanson
In 1978, the eminent sociologist William Julius Wilson argued confidently that class would soon displace race as the most important social variable in American life. As explicit legal barriers to minority advancement receded farther into the past, the fates of the working classes of different races would converge. By the mid 2000s, Wilson’s thesis looked pretty good: The black middle class was vibrant and growing as the average black wealth nearly doubled from 1995 to 2005. Race appeared to lose its salience as a political predictor: More and more blacks were voting Republican, reversing a decades-long trend, and in 2004 George W. Bush collected the highest share of the Latino (44 percent) vote of any Republican ever and a higher share of the Asian vote (43 percent) than he did in 2000. Our politics grew increasingly ideological and less racial: Progressives and the beneficiaries of a generous social-welfare state generally supported the Democratic party, while more prosperous voters were more likely to support Republicans. Stable majorities expressed satisfaction with the state of race relations. It wasn’t quite a post-racial politics, but it was certainly headed in that direction. But in the midst of the financial crisis of 2007, something happened. Both the white poor and the black poor began to struggle mightily, though for different reasons. And our politics changed dramatically in response. It’s ironic that the election of the first black president marked the end of our brief flirtation with a post-racial politics. By 2011, William Julius Wilson had published a slight revision of his earlier thesis, noting the continued importance of race. The black wealth of the 1990s, it turned out, was built on the mirage of house values. Inner-city murder rates, which had fallen for decades, began to tick upward in 2015. In one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent memory, a white supremacist murdered nine black people in a South Carolina church. And the ever-present antagonism between the police and black Americans — especially poor blacks whose neighborhoods are the most heavily policed — erupted into nationwide protests. Meanwhile, the white working class descended into an intense cultural malaise. Prescription-opioid abuse skyrocketed, and deaths from heroin overdoses clogged the obituaries of local papers. In the small, heavily white Ohio county where I grew up, overdoses overtook nature as the leading cause of death. A drug that for so long was associated with inner-city ghettos became the cultural inheritance of the southern and Appalachian white: White youths died from heroin significantly more often than their peers of other ethnicities. Incarceration and divorce rates increased steadily. Perhaps most strikingly, while the white working class continued to earn more than the working poor of other races, only 24 percent of white voters believed that the next generation would be “better off.” No other ethnic group expressed such alarming pessimism about its economic future. And even as each group struggled in its own way, common forces also influenced them. Rising automation in blue-collar industries deprived both groups of high-paying, low-skill jobs. Neighborhoods grew increasingly segregated — both by income and by race — ensuring that poor whites lived among poor whites while poor blacks lived among poor blacks. As a friend recently told me about San Francisco, Bull Connor himself couldn’t have designed a city with fewer black residents. Predictably, our politics began to match this new social reality. In 2012, Mitt Romney collected only 27 percent of the Latino vote. Asian Americans, a solid Republican constituency even in the days of Bob Dole, went for Obama by a three-to-one margin — a shocking demographic turn of events over two decades. Meanwhile, the black Republican became an endangered species. Republican failures to attract black voters fly in the face of Republican history. This was the party of Lincoln and Douglass. Eisenhower integrated the school in Little Rock at a time when the Dixiecrats were the defenders of the racial caste system.(…) For many progressives, the Sommers and Norton research confirms the worst stereotypes of American whites. Yet it also reflects, in some ways, the natural conclusions of an increasingly segregated white poor. (…) The reality is not that black Americans enjoy special privileges. In fact, the overwhelming weight of the evidence suggests that the opposite is true. Last month, for instance, the brilliant Harvard economist Roland Fryer published an exhaustive study of police uses of force. He found that even after controlling for crime rates and police presence in a given neighborhood, black youths were far likelier to be pushed, thrown to the ground, or harassed by police. (Notably, he also found no racial disparity in the use of lethal force.) (…) Getting whipped into a frenzy on conspiracy websites, or feeling that distant, faceless elites dislike you because of your white skin, doesn’t compare. But the great advantages of whiteness in America are invisible to the white poor, or are completely swallowed by the disadvantages of their class. The young man from West Virginia may be less likely to get questioned by Yale University police, but making it to Yale in the first place still requires a remarkable combination of luck and skill. In building a dialogue around “checking privilege,” the modern progressive elite is implicitly asking white America — especially the segregated white poor — for a level of social awareness unmatched in the history of the country. White failure to empathize with blacks is sometimes a failure of character, but it is increasingly a failure of geography and socialization. Poor whites in West Virginia don’t have the time or the inclination to read Harvard economics studies. And the privileges that matter — that is, the ones they see — are vanishing because of destitution: the privilege to pay for college without bankruptcy, the privilege to work a decent job, the privilege to put food on the table without the aid of food stamps, the privilege not to learn of yet another classmate’s premature death. (…) Because of this polarization, the racial conversation we’re having today is tribalistic. On one side are primarily white people, increasingly represented by the Republican party and the institutions of conservative media. On the other is a collection of different minority groups and a cosmopolitan — and usually wealthier — class of whites. These sides don’t even speak the same language: One side sees white privilege while the other sees anti-white racism. There is no room for agreement or even understanding. J. D. Vance
In another eerie ditto of his infamous 2008 attack on the supposedly intolerant Pennsylvania “clingers,” Obama returned to his theme that ignorant Americans “typically” become xenophobic and racist: “Typically, when people feel stressed, they turn on others who don’t look like them.” (“Typically” is not a good Obama word to use in the context of racial relations, since he once dubbed his own grandmother a “typical white person.”) Too often Obama has gratuitously aroused racial animosities with inflammatory rhetoric such as “punish our enemies,” or injected himself into the middle of hot-button controversies like the Trayvon Martin case, the Henry Louis Gates melodrama, and the “hands up, don’t shoot” Ferguson mayhem. Most recently, Obama seemed to praise backup 49ers quarterback and multimillionaire Colin Kaepernick for his refusal to stand during the National Anthem, empathizing with Kaepernick’s claims of endemic American racism. (…) Even presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not really defending the Obama administration’s past “red line” in Syria, the “reset” with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the bombing of Libya, the Benghazi tragedy, the euphemistic rebranding of Islamic terrorism as mere “violent extremism,” the abrupt pullout from (and subsequent collapse of) Iraq, or the Iran nuclear deal that so far seems to have made the theocracy both rich and emboldened. (…) Racial relations in this country seem as bad as they have been in a half-century. (…) Following the Clinton model, a post-presidential Obama will no doubt garner huge fees as a “citizen of the world” — squaring the circle of becoming fabulously rich while offering sharp criticism of the cultural landscape of the capitalist West on everything from sports controversies to pending criminal trials. What, then, is the presidential legacy of Barack Obama? It will not be found in either foreign- or domestic-policy accomplishment. More likely, he will be viewed as an outspoken progressive who left office loudly in the same manner that he entered it — as a critic of the culture and country in which he has thrived. But there may be another, unspoken legacy of Obama, and it is his creation of the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. Trump is running as an angry populist, fueled by the promise that whatever supposed elites such as Obama have done to the country, he will largely undo. Obama’s only legacy seems to be that “hope and change” begat “make America great again.” Victor Davis Hanson
Hillary Clinton’s comment that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic”—a heck of a lot of phobia for anyone to lug around all day—puts back in play what will be seen as one of the 2016 campaign’s defining forces: the revolt of the politically incorrect. They may not live at the level of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” but it was only a matter of time before les déplorables—our own writhing mass of unheard Americans—rebelled against the intellectual elites’ ancien régime of political correctness. (…) Mrs. Clinton’s (…) dismissal, at Barbra Streisand’s LGBT fundraiser, of uncounted millions of Americans as deplorables had the ring of genuine belief. Perhaps sensing that public knowledge of what she really thinks could be a political liability, Mrs. Clinton went on to describe “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them . . . and they’re just desperate for change.” She is of course describing the people in Charles Murray’s recent and compelling book on cultural disintegration among the working class, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.” This is indeed the bedrock of the broader Trump base. Mrs. Clinton is right that they feel the system has let them down. There is a legitimate argument over exactly when the rising digital economy started transferring income away from blue-collar workers and toward the “creative class” of Google and Facebook employees, no few of whom are smug progressives who think the landmass seen from business class between San Francisco and New York is pocked with deplorable, phobic Americans. Naturally, they’ll vote for the status quo, which is Hillary. But in the eight years available to Barack Obama to do something about what rankles the lower-middle class—white, black or brown—the non-employed and underemployed grew. A lot of them will vote for Donald Trump because they want a radical mid-course correction. (…) The progressive Democrats, a wholly public-sector party, have disconnected from the realities of the private economy, which exists as a mysterious revenue-producing abstraction. Hillary’s comments suggest they now see much of the population has a cultural and social abstraction. (…) Donald Trump’s appeal, in part, is that he cracks back at progressive cultural condescension in utterly crude terms. Nativists exist, and the sky is still blue. But the overwhelming majority of these people aren’t phobic about a modernizing America. They’re fed up with the relentless, moral superciliousness of Hillary, the Obamas, progressive pundits and 19-year-old campus activists. Evangelicals at last week’s Values Voter Summit said they’d look past Mr. Trump’s personal résumé. This is the reason. It’s not about him. The moral clarity that drove the original civil-rights movement or the women’s movement has degenerated into a confused moral narcissism. (…) It is a mistake, though, to blame Hillary alone for that derisive remark. It’s not just her. Hillary Clinton is the logical result of the Democratic Party’s new, progressive algorithm—a set of strict social rules that drives politics and the culture to one point of view. (…) Her supporters say it’s Donald Trump’s rhetoric that is “divisive.” Just so. But it’s rich to hear them claim that their words and politics are “inclusive.” So is the town dump. They have chopped American society into so many offendable identities that only a Yale freshman can name them all. If the Democrats lose behind Hillary Clinton, it will be in part because America’s les déplorables decided enough of this is enough. Bret Stephens
It doesn’t matter that the cop who killed Keith Scott is black (…) As of Wednesday morning, the most recent story of a black man killed by police is that of Keith Scott in Charlotte. Scott was killed Tuesday and details of the incident are still scant. One of the few bits of information shared by officials and reported by media, however, is that Bentley Vinson, the officer who killed Scott, was also black. As the country struggles to make sense of Scott’s death in relation to the estimated 193 other black people killed by police so far this year (and 306 in 2015), Vinson’s race is being used by some to dismiss charges that Scott was the victim of racist policing. To reduce the role of anti-blackness in policing to merely the race of officers involved in fatal police encounters is misguided, however. It betrays a profound misunderstanding of the ways racism and anti-blackness work within systems, assumes that black people are free of anti-black bias, and that black officers somehow transcend the police cultures in which they’re steeped. (…) Studies have shown that black people are not only capable of anti-black bias but that those who’ve been tested for racial bias are evenly split when it comes to pro-white and pro-black attitudes. Even more, research on the impact of police force diversity on officer-involved homicides has found no relationship between the racial representation of police forces and police killings in the cities they serve. In fact, one study revealed that the best way to predict how many police shootings might occur in a city is to look at the size of its black population. All of that without mentioning the troubling accounts from black police officers of the racism they experience on the force and the pressure they often face to engage in race-based policing in the communities they serve. Ice Cube put it simply in 1988 on N.W.A.’s Fuck tha Police, “But don’t let it be a black and a white one, ‘cause they’ll slam ya down to the street top. Black police showing out for the white cop.” What a 19-year-old Cube understood nearly 30 years ago seems to still elude members of the media and even policymakers today. That’s that there are a number of factors that impact how police officers—yes, even black officers—engage black civilians and suspects, the least of which is shared characteristics. To be sure, America could benefit from more diversity in its police force, especially in communities of color. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 65 percent of the nation’s 3,109,000 law enforcement officers are white. That number jumps to 70 percent for patrol officers and nearly 80 percent for police supervisors. But, while we’re concerned with the race of cops, we should be as concerned with the culture, policy, and practices that guide their actions. The issue at hand isn’t the personal feelings of cops who encounter black civilians but the deadly system of policing that criminalizes blackness, actively profiles black people, over-policies our neighborhoods as a matter of policy, and that uses force against us at three times the rate of whites. That is the ugly state of American policing and that truth doesn’t suddenly change when the boys in blue are black. Donovan X. Ramsey
Brentley Vinson, l’agent lui-même noir qui a abattu la victime, a été suspendu en attendant les résultats d’une enquête administrative, mais la situation ne s’est pas calmée à Charlotte. Deux nuits de violences se sont succédées depuis, et l’Etat d’urgence a été déclaré sur place. Terence Crutcher et Keith Lamont Scott font partie de la longue liste des 822 personnes tuées cette année lors d’une intervention policière aux Etats-Unis, selon le site Mapping Police Violence. Ils font également partie des 214 Noirs américains tués en 2016 par des policiers. Si ces chiffres sont très éloignés des 351 victimes blanches, il convient de les remettre en perspective. Comme l’indique le Washington Post, les Blancs constituent 62% des Américains, mais seulement 49% des victimes policières. Au contraire, les Noirs font partie à 24% des victimes policières, alors que le nombre d’Afro-Américains dans la population totale n’est que de 13%. Le site ProPublica, qui a analysé des chiffres du FBI concernant la période 2012-2012, écrit qu’un adolescent noir a 21 chances de plus d’être tué par la police qu’un adolescent blanc. Si la majorité des Afro-Américains tués en 2016 étaient armés (…), 48 d’entre eux ne l’étaient pas (..) Une étude du Washington Post a démontré qu’en 2015, un Noir non-armé avait sept fois plus de chances d’être abattu qu’un blanc.Impossible cependant d’expliquer ces disparités sans prendre un compte la dimension sociale du phénomène. Comme l’explique Vox, la police patrouille en majorité dans les quartiers aux taux de crimes élevés, où la population noire est plus importante que dans la moyenne américaine. Mais des études ont aussi montré qu’à l’entrainement sur des plateformes de simulation, les policiers tiraient plus rapidement sur des suspects noirs. Un biais qui conduirait à des erreurs d’autant plus importantes sur le terrain. JDD
L’économiste noir nous explique ici que la meilleure façon de lutter contre les violences policières et les ‘mauvaises écoles’ se trouve dans les données, et non dans l’expérience personnelle. (…) Le plus jeune Afro-américain titulaire d’une chaire à l’université d’Harvard explique ses dernières recherches sur les inégalités raciales à travers l’utilisation de la force par la police américaine. Adolescent, Fryer s’est retrouvé face aux armes pointées par des policiers “six ou sept” fois. “Mais, dit-il en traçant une courbe descendante de gauche à droite, il y a une tendance inquiétante, les gens parlent des races aux États-Unis en se basant uniquement sur leur expérience personnelle.” Avec sa voix teintée d’un soupçon d’accent du sud des États-Unis, il poursuit : “Je m’en fiche, de mon expérience personnelle, ou de celle des autres. Tout ce que je veux savoir, c’est comment cette expérience nous amène aux données chiffrées, pour nous aider à savoir ce qui se passe vraiment.” L’année dernière, comprendre ce qui se passe vraiment a conduit Roland Fryer, 38 ans, à remporter la médaille John Bates Clark, récompense annuelle décernée à un économiste américain de moins de 40 ans. La médaille est considérée comme le prix le plus prestigieux en économie, après le prix Nobel. (…) Roland Fryer me raconte qu’il a passé deux jours l’an dernier à suivre les policiers durant leurs rondes à Camden, dans le New Jersey (lors du premier jour de patrouille, une femme a succombé à une overdose devant lui). Roland Fryer cherchait à comprendre si les meurtres de Michael Brown et de Eric Garner, deux jeunes Afro-américains dont la mort a provoqué d’énormes manifestations, s’inscrivaient dans un modèle de répétitions identifiable, comme le mouvement activiste Black Lives Matter l’affirmait. Après une semaine de patrouilles, il a collecté plus de six millions de données des autorités, dont celles de la ville de New York, sur les victimes noires, blanches et latino de violences policières. (…) une fois les facteurs de contexte pris en compte, les Noirs ne sont pas plus susceptibles selon ces données d’être abattus par la police. Ce qui soulève la question : pourquoi ce tollé en 2014 à Ferguson, dans le Missouri, où le jeune Michael Brown a été abattu ? (…) “Ce sont les données” dit Fryer. “Maintenant, une hypothèse pour expliquer ce qui est arrivé à Ferguson – pas la fusillade, mais la réaction d’indignation – : ce n’était pas parce que les gens faisaient une déduction statistique, pas à propos de l’innocence ou de la culpabilité de Michael, mais parce qu’ils détestent cette putain de police.” Il poursuit : “la raison pour laquelle ils détestent la police est que si vous avez passé des années être fouillés, jetés à terre, menottés sans motif réel, et ensuite, vous entendez qu’un policier a tiré dans votre ville, comment pouvez-vous croire que c’était autre chose que de la discrimination ?” “Je pense que cela a à voir avec les incentives et les récompenses” ajoute Fryer. Les officiers de police, explique-t-il, reçoivent souvent les mêmes récompenses indépendamment de la gravité des crimes qu’ils traitent, et ils ne sont pas sanctionnés pour l’utilisation de “la force de bas niveau” sans raison valable [aux États-Unis, les moyens de pression de la police sont classés du plus bas niveau (injonction verbale) au plus haut niveau (arme létale), ndt]. Cela encourage un comportement agressif. Financial Times
Par son geste, Kaepernick a emboîté le pas à d’autres joueurs professionnels luttant contre les discriminations raciales ou la violence des armes à feu, parmi lesquels les stars du basket-ball Dwyane Wade, LeBron James ou Carmelo Anthony. Mais, contrairement à ces piliers de la NBA, Kaepernick a délivré son message à un moment très sensible. Aux Etats-Unis s’attaquer au Stars and Stripes (le drapeau) ou au Star-Spangled Banner (l’hymne national) est un jeu très dangereux. La chanteuse Sinead O’Connor en avait fait les frais en 1990, excluant de se produire dans le New Jersey si l’hymne américain était joué en préambule. L’Irlandaise avait été la cible d’une campagne de rejet, bannie par plusieurs radios. Un quart de siècle plus tard, Colin Kaepernick se retrouve vilipendé sur les réseaux sociaux, des Américains exigeant de la Ligue nationale de football américain (NFL) sa suspension, voire son licenciement. Accusé de bafouer un symbole et de politiser son sport, Colin Kaepernick s’inscrit aussi dans une lignée d’athlètes protestataires noirs qui ont marqué les Etats-Unis. Inhumé en juin entouré d’hommages planétaires, la légende de la boxe Mohamed Ali avait payé de plusieurs années d’interruption de carrière son refus d’aller combattre au Vietnam. Egalement gravés dans la mémoire collective sont les poings gantés de noir de Tommie Smith et John Carlos, sur le podium du 200 mètres des jeux Olympiques de Mexico de 1968. Ces deux athlètes, dénonçant la ségrégation raciale théoriquement abolie mais encore bien présente alors, ont été boycottés par les médias et honnis durant des décennies, avant d’être réhabilités tardivement. Francetv
Critics have claimed that corner-clearing and other forms of so-called broken-windows policing are invidiously intended to “control African-American and poor communities,” in the words of Columbia law professor Bernard Harcourt. This critique of public-order enforcement ignores a fundamental truth: It’s the people who live in high-crime areas who petition for “corner-clearing.” The police are simply obeying their will. And when the police back off of such order-maintenance strategies under the accusation of racism, it is the law-abiding poor who pay the price. (…) A 54-year-old grandmother (…) understands something that eludes the activists and academics: Out of street disorder grows more serious crime. (…) After the Freddie Gray riots in April 2016, the Baltimore police virtually stopped enforcing drug laws and other low-level offenses. Shootings spiked, along with loitering and other street disorder. (…) This observed support for public-order enforcement is backed up by polling data. In a Quinnipiac poll from 2015, slightly more black than white voters in New York City said they want the police to “actively issue summonses or make arrests” in their neighborhood for quality-of-life offenses: 61 percent of black voters wanted such summons and arrests, with 33 percent opposed, versus 59 percent of white voters in support, with 37 percent opposed. The wider public is clueless about the social breakdown in high-crime areas and its effect on street life. The drive-by shootings, the open-air drug-dealing, and the volatility and brutality of those large groups of uncontrolled kids are largely unknown outside of inner-city areas. Ideally, informal social controls, above all the family, preserve public order. But when the family disintegrates, the police are the second-best solution for protecting the law-abiding. (That family disintegration now frequently takes the form of the chaos that social scientists refer to as “multi-partner fertility,” in which females have children by several different males and males have children by several different females, dashing hopes for any straightforward reuniting of biological mothers and fathers.)This year in Chicago alone, through August 30, 12 people have been shot a day, for a tally of 2,870 shooting victims, 490 of them killed. (By contrast, the police shot 17 people through August 30, or 0.6 percent of the total.) The reason for this mayhem is that cops have backed off of public-order enforcement. Pedestrian stops are down 90 percent. (…) “Police legitimacy” is a hot topic among academic critics of the police these days. Those critics have never answered the question: What should the police do when their constituents beg them to maintain order? Should the cops ignore them? There would be no surer way to lose legitimacy in the eyes of the people who need them most. Heather Mac Donald
La promesse d’une Amérique post-raciale n’a pas été tenue. Il y a quelques jours à peine, Barack Obama a même invité la communauté noire à s’opposer en bloc à Donald Trump le 8 novembre, en disant qu’il serait vexé si elle ne soutenait pas Hilary Clinton. On a beau croire et dire que l’Amérique entretient un rapport décomplexé avec les statistiques ethniques, il n’en demeure pas moins que cet appel explicite au vote ethnique et communautariste ramène l’Amérique a son clivage originel. De son côté, même s’il ne joue pas explicitement la carte raciale, Donald Trump est le candidat de la classe moyenne blanche qui ressent son déclassement symbolique et économique dans une Amérique convertie au multiculturalisme et au libre-échangisme. Il canalise politiquement un ressentiment qui s’accumule depuis longtemps. Aussi fantasque et inquiétant soit-il, il se présente comme le porte-parole d’une Amérique périphérique en révolte. La question de l’immigration est centrale dans la présente présidentielle. On le sait, le mythe américain est celui d’une nation d’immigrants. Il suffirait d’embrasser le rêve américain et les valeurs américaines pour adhérer à la nation. On oublie pourtant l’existence d’une nation historique américaine, qui s’est transformée au fil des vagues d’immigration successives, mais qui n’est pas pour autant un simple amas d’individus indéterminés. Il existe un noyau culturel américain. Aujourd’hui, l’Amérique est confrontée à l’hispanisation des États du sud. Une bonne partie de cette immigration massive est clandestine et on compte plusieurs millions de sans-papiers dans le pays. Rares sont ceux qui croient possible ou qui souhaitent leur expulsion systématique. Mais tous savent qu’une politique d’amnistie jouerait le rôle d’une pompe aspirante pour de nouvelles vagues de clandestins. De grands pans de l’électorat américain sont traversés par une forme d’angoisse identitaire, qu’on ne saurait réduire mesquinement à une forme de panique morale, comme s’il était globalement paranoïaque. On peut y reconnaître la hantise de déclassement d’un empire qui avait pris l’habitude de sa supériorité mondiale. On y verra aussi, toutefois, une peur de la dilution de l’identité américaine et de sa submersion démographique, semblable à celle qui se manifeste dans les pays européens. En s’en prenant violemment il y a quelques jours à la moitié des électeurs de Trump pour les qualifier de racistes, de sexistes, d’homophobes, de xénophobes et d’islamophobes, Hillary Clinton a certainement procuré satisfaction à la frange la plus radicale de la base démocrate, qu’on trouve dans les universités et les médias. Mais un tel mépris de classe de la part de la représentante par excellence des élites américaines pourrait lui coûter cher chez ceux qui se sentent exclus du système politique et qui rêvent de punir la classe politique. Le pays du 11 septembre n’est pas épargné non plus par les nouveaux visages du terrorisme islamiste, comme on l’a vu notamment à Orlando et à San Bernardino. L’Amérique ne se sent plus à l’abri dans ses frontières. L’islamisme a prouvé à plus d’une reprise sa capacité à frapper en son cœur n’importe quelle société occidentale. Le grand malaise de Barack Obama lorsque vient le temps de nommer l’islam radical, par peur de l’amalgame, affaiblit moralement le président américain, qui semble incapable de faire face à l’ennemi qui le désigne. On en trouve de moins en moins pour célébrer cette dissolution du réel dans une rhétorique inclusive qui, pour ne blesser personne, se montre incapable de nommer le principal péril sécuritaire qui pèse sur notre époque. Obama est ici victime d’une illusion caractéristique de l’universalisme radical. (…) Il ne sert à rien de faire aujourd’hui un réquisitoire contre Obama, d’autant que sa présidence ne fut pas sans grandeur. Appelé à présider une Amérique déclinante dans un contexte mondial impossible, il aura, comme on dit, fait tout son possible pour la pacifier. Si on peut faire le bilan d’un échec relatif de sa présidence, on ne saurait toutefois parler d’une faillite morale. Mathieu Bock-Côté
Vous avez dit pompiers pyromanes ?
A l’heure où semble se confirme l’hypothèse de la provocation délibérée et d’un véritable coup monté d’une porteuse de burkini australienne prétendant avoir été chassée par des baigneurs de Villeneuve-Loubet le 18 septembre dernier et où en Italie une présentatrice de la télévison se voit fustigée pour le port d’une croix pendant qu’après la première olympienne, c’est à la première présentatrice voilée que se prépare l’Amérique …
Où, 15 ans après le 11 septembre et un nouveau massacre, le leader du Monde libre ne peut toujours pas donner un nom à la principale menace qui pèse sur ledit Monde libre …
Mais appelle explicitement au vote ethnique et communautariste alors que son ancienne secrétaire d’Etat et candidate de son parti qualifie de racistes, sexistes, homophobes, xénophobes et islamophobes la moitié des électeurs de son adversaire …
Pendant que les médias gratifient de leur couverture pour son antipatriotisme un sportif noir également élevé par des blancs …
Et qu’un mouvement antiraciste dénonce sytématiquement contre toute évidence le prétendu « racisme policier » …
Qui prendra la peine de rappeler que la dernière victime en date dudit « racisme » est comme dans bien d’autres cas aussi noire que celui qui l’a abattu ?
Et qui aura le courage de reconnaitre contre ceux qui s’accrochent à sa prétendue « grandeur » pour se refuser à faire un « réquisitoire » ou parler de « faillite morale » …
Qu’une présidence qui n’ayant jamais eu de mots assez durs pour rabaisser son propre pays et en fustiger les manquements …
N’a sans compter la hausse du nombre d’homicides lié à l’effet Ferguson qui décourage les policiers d’entrer dans certains quartiers …
Fait en réalité qu’ajouter de l’huile sur le feu et enhardir les ennemis de la liberté ?
L’échec du grand rêve d’Obama
Mathieu Bock-Côté
Le Figaro
24/09/2016
FIGAROVOX/ANALYSE – Sur fond d’émeutes raciales, Barack Obama a livré un plaidoyer pour le multiculturalisme et contre le populisme lors de son dernier discours à l’assemblée générale de l’ONU. Pour Mathieu Bock-Côté, la fin de sa présidence est cependant marquée par la révolte de l’Amérique périphérique.
Mathieu Bock-Côté est docteur en sociologie et chargé de cours aux HEC à Montréal. Ses travaux portent principalement sur le multiculturalisme, les mutations de la démocratie contemporaine et la question nationale québécoise. Il est l’auteur d’Exercices politiques (VLB éditeur, 2013), de Fin de cycle: aux origines du malaise politique québécois (Boréal, 2012) et de La dénationalisation tranquille: mémoire, identité et multiculturalisme dans le Québec post-référendaire (Boréal, 2007). Mathieu Bock-Côté est aussi chroniqueur au Journal de Montréal et à Radio-Canada. Son dernier livre, Le multiculturalisme comme religion politique vient de paraître aux éditions du Cerf.
Dans son dernier discours à l’assemblée générale de l’ONU, Barack Obama a cru devoir livrer un plaidoyer militant contre le populisme qui partout monterait en Occident. En toile de fond de son intervention, il avait naturellement en tête la poussée de Donald Trump, dont on ne peut exclure l’élection à la Maison-Blanche, dans quelques semaines, et qui a mené une campagne portant principalement sur les périls de l’immigration massive et la reconstruction des frontières américaines. On peut croire, toutefois, qu’il visait aussi les mouvements populistes qui progressent sur le vieux continent et qui témoignent de semblables préoccupations. Ce discours en forme d’avertissement permettait à Obama de rappeler les fondements de sa philosophie politique: l’Amérique est un pays d’immigrants et multiculturel. Il a aussi pour vocation de servir d’exemple à l’humanité entière, pour peu qu’il soit à la hauteur de ses idéaux.
Cette mise en garde n’est pas surprenante. L’Amérique n’a rien du paradis multiculturel qu’Obama entendait construire à l’aube de sa présidence, quand on l’imaginait dans les traits du grand réconciliateur d’une nation divisée. La renaissance des tensions raciales, ces derniers mois, plombe une fin de présidence déjà décevante. Si le récit médiatique radicalise une situation déjà difficile, en présentant systématiquement des policiers blancs pourchassant de jeunes noirs, et n’hésitant pas à ouvrir le feu sur eux, on doit néanmoins convenir que la multiplication des bavures rouvre la vieille plaie mal guérie de la ségrégation raciale. En juillet, à Baton Rouge, en Louisiane, cela a même poussé dans une logique de guerre civile un jeune noir qui a assassiné trois policiers blancs. Dans un pays violent, l’Américain moyen a le réflexe de s’armer. Les gated communities se multiplient aussi. La méfiance règne.
La promesse d’une Amérique post-raciale n’a pas été tenue. Il y a quelques jours à peine, Barack Obama a même invité la communauté noire à s’opposer en bloc à Donald Trump le 8 novembre, en disant qu’il serait vexé si elle ne soutenait pas Hilary Clinton. On a beau croire et dire que l’Amérique entretient un rapport décomplexé avec les statistiques ethniques, il n’en demeure pas moins que cet appel explicite au vote ethnique et communautariste ramène l’Amérique a son clivage originel. De son côté, même s’il ne joue pas explicitement la carte raciale, Donald Trump est le candidat de la classe moyenne blanche qui ressent son déclassement symbolique et économique dans une Amérique convertie au multiculturalisme et au libre-échangisme. Il canalise politiquement un ressentiment qui s’accumule depuis longtemps. Aussi fantasque et inquiétant soit-il, il se présente comme le porte-parole d’une Amérique périphérique en révolte.
La question de l’immigration est centrale dans la présente présidentielle. On le sait, le mythe américain est celui d’une nation d’immigrants. Il suffirait d’embrasser le rêve américain et les valeurs américaines pour adhérer à la nation. On oublie pourtant l’existence d’une nation historique américaine, qui s’est transformée au fil des vagues d’immigration successives, mais qui n’est pas pour autant un simple amas d’individus indéterminés. Il existe un noyau culturel américain. Aujourd’hui, l’Amérique est confrontée à l’hispanisation des États du sud. Une bonne partie de cette immigration massive est clandestine et on compte plusieurs millions de sans-papiers dans le pays. Rares sont ceux qui croient possible ou qui souhaitent leur expulsion systématique. Mais tous savent qu’une politique d’amnistie jouerait le rôle d’une pompe aspirante pour de nouvelles vagues de clandestins.
De grands pans de l’électorat américain sont traversés par une forme d’angoisse identitaire, qu’on ne saurait réduire mesquinement à une forme de panique morale, comme s’il était globalement paranoïaque. On peut y reconnaître la hantise de déclassement d’un empire qui avait pris l’habitude de sa supériorité mondiale. On y verra aussi, toutefois, une peur de la dilution de l’identité américaine et de sa submersion démographique, semblable à celle qui se manifeste dans les pays européens. En s’en prenant violemment il y a quelques jours à la moitié des électeurs de Trump pour les qualifier de racistes, de sexistes, d’homophobes, de xénophobes et d’islamophobes, Hillary Clinton a certainement procuré satisfaction à la frange la plus radicale de la base démocrate, qu’on trouve dans les universités et les médias. Mais un tel mépris de classe de la part de la représentante par excellence des élites américaines pourrait lui coûter cher chez ceux qui se sentent exclus du système politique et qui rêvent de punir la classe politique.
Le pays du 11 septembre n’est pas épargné non plus par les nouveaux visages du terrorisme islamiste, comme on l’a vu notamment à Orlando et à San Bernardino. L’Amérique ne se sent plus à l’abri dans ses frontières. L’islamisme a prouvé à plus d’une reprise sa capacité à frapper en son cœur n’importe quelle société occidentale. Le grand malaise de Barack Obama lorsque vient le temps de nommer l’islam radical, par peur de l’amalgame, affaiblit moralement le président américain, qui semble incapable de faire face à l’ennemi qui le désigne. On en trouve de moins en moins pour célébrer cette dissolution du réel dans une rhétorique inclusive qui, pour ne blesser personne, se montre incapable de nommer le principal péril sécuritaire qui pèse sur notre époque. Obama est ici victime d’une illusion caractéristique de l’universalisme radical.
Huit ans plus tard, l’optimisme radieux des premiers mois de la présidence d’Obama semble bien éloigné. L’Amérique misait sur cet homme exceptionnellement doué pour la parole publique pour tourner une page de son histoire et transcender ce qu’on appellera son péché originel. La tâche était probablement trop grande et les fractures américaines, plus profondes qu’on ne le pensait. Peut-être dirons-nous quand même un jour qu’il a marqué une étape majeure dans l’émancipation de la communauté noire, même si l’histoire n’avance pas aussi vite qu’on le souhaiterait. Il ne sert à rien de faire aujourd’hui un réquisitoire contre Obama, d’autant que sa présidence ne fut pas sans grandeur. Appelé à présider une Amérique déclinante dans un contexte mondial impossible, il aura, comme on dit, fait tout son possible pour la pacifier. Si on peut faire le bilan d’un échec relatif de sa présidence, on ne saurait toutefois parler d’une faillite morale.
Voir aussi:
Voir également:
Etats-Unis: «l’effet Ferguson» ou la peur des policiers américains
RFI
25-10-2015
Le grand rassemblement annuel des chefs de police américains se tient en ce moment à Chicago. 14 000 officiers sont réunis pour évoquer les problèmes rencontrés et les changements qui affectent leur travail. Barack Obama s’exprimera devant cette assemblée ce mardi, dans le contexte des tensions raciales de ces derniers mois aux Etats-Unis. Le directeur du FBI, James Comey, a déjà provoqué une polémique en déclarant que les forces de l’ordre avaient désormais peur de remplir leur mission.
Avec notre correspondante à Washington, Anne-Marie Capomaccio
On appelle cela « l’effet Ferguson » : des policiers mis en cause après la mort d’un homme noir, entraînant une sorte de dépression collective. Leurs collègues hésiteraient désormais à procéder à des arrestations, tétanisés à l’idée de devenir les acteurs involontaires de vidéos virales. Résultat : ils ne font plus leur travail et le taux de criminalité est en hausse. C’est la théorie du directeur du FBI.
James Comey le reconnaît, il s’appuie sur son intuition, car aucune statistique fédérale n’existe aux Etats-Unis, ni sur le crime en général, ni sur les personnes tuées par la police. Les seules données disponibles sont compilées par des associations ou des journaux.
Pratiques policières
Cette thèse, très diversement appréciée par les responsables de la police américaine réunis à Chicago, a eu le mérite d’animer débat sur les pratiques des forces de l’ordre. La police est-elle raciste ? Les officiers utilisent-ils leurs armes sans réel motif ? Ont-ils peur des personnes qu’ils sont censés protéger ?
Les policiers sont d’accord sur le fait qu’il faut améliorer d’urgence les relations avec le public. Une prise de conscience qui arrive tard et sous la pression de la rue, excédée à la fois par les violences policières et le nombre de crimes en hausse dans les grandes métropoles.
Voir encore:
CARTES. Etats-Unis : les abus de la police à l’encontre des Afro-Américains
La mort d’un Noir américain tué mardi par la police a conduit à des émeutes importantes à Charlotte, où l’état d’urgence a été déclaré. Vendredi, un autre Afro-Américain a été abattu à côté de sa voiture alors qu’il n’était pas armé et semblait coopérer.
JDD
22 septembre 2016
Après la mort le 16 septembre dernier de Terence Crutcher, abattu par la police près de son véhicule alors qu’il n’était pas armé et avait les mains en l’air, le problème des abus des forces de l’ordre à l’encontre des Afro-Américains revient sur le devant de la scène outre-Atlantique. D’autant plus depuis mardi et la mort dans des conditions troubles de Keith Lamont Scott, un Noir américain de 43 ans, lui aussi tué par des policiers à Charlotte en Caroline du Nord. La police maintient qu’il était armé et faisait peser une menace vitale réelle, mais la soeur de la victime contredit cette version, arguant qu’il lisait un livre au moment de sa mort.
En 2016, déjà 822 tués par la police
Brentley Vinson, l’agent lui-même noir qui a abattu la victime, a été suspendu en attendant les résultats d’une enquête administrative, mais la situation ne s’est pas calmée à Charlotte. Deux nuits de violences se sont succédées depuis, et l’Etat d’urgence a été déclaré sur place. Le gouverneur, Pat McCrory, a en outre annoncé sur Twitter avoir « pris l’initiative de déployer la Garde nationale et la police autoroutière pour aider la police locale ».
Terence Crutcher et Keith Lamont Scott font partie de la longue liste des 822 personnes tuées cette année lors d’une intervention policière aux Etats-Unis, selon le site Mapping Police Violence :
Ils font également partie des 214 Noirs américains tués en 2016 par des policiers. Si ces chiffres sont très éloignés des 351 victimes blanches, il convient de les remettre en perspective.
Comme l’indique le Washington Post, les Blancs constituent 62% des Américains, mais seulement 49% des victimes policières. Au contraire, les Noirs font partie à 24% des victimes policières, alors que le nombre d’Afro-Américains dans la population totale n’est que de 13%. Le site ProPublica, qui a analysé des chiffres du FBI concernant la période 2012-2012, écrit qu’un adolescent noir a 21 chances de plus d’être tué par la police qu’un adolescent blanc.
Des disparités sociales
Depuis janvier 2016, les Etats enregistrant le plus grand nombre de victimes Afro-Américaines sont la Californie, la Floride et le Texas, toujours selon Mapping Police Violence. Des chiffres liés à la densité de population des agglomérations. Il n’est donc pas surprenant de retrouver aussi une densité importante de victimes dans la zone allant de New York jusqu’à Washington.
Si la majorité des Afro-Américains tués en 2016 étaient armés (en rouge sur la carte), 48 d’entre eux ne l’étaient pas (en noir). Une étude du Washington Post a démontré qu’en 2015, un Noir non-armé avait sept fois plus de chances d’être abattu qu’un blanc.
Impossible cependant d’expliquer ces disparités sans prendre un compte la dimension sociale du phénomène. Comme l’explique Vox, la police patrouille en majorité dans les quartiers aux taux de crimes élevés, où la population noire est plus importante que dans la moyenne américaine. Mais des études ont aussi montré qu’à l’entrainement sur des plateformes de simulation, les policiers tiraient plus rapidement sur des suspects noirs. Un biais qui conduirait à des erreurs d’autant plus importantes sur le terrain. « Dans la situation où ils devraient être le plus entraînés, note ainsi le chercheur Josh Corell, qui a enquêté sur ce sujet, nous avons des raisons de croire que leur entraînement les conduit à se tromper. »
Voir également:
In case you hadn’t heard, the Charlotte police shooter is black.
Wall Street Journal
Sept. 23, 2016
We realize this is a prosaic point but it is also roundly ignored as the media and politicians try to fit each shooting episode into the same political narrative: trigger-happy, racist cops kill defenseless young black man, and then the racist system conspires to deny the victim and his family the justice they deserve.
The reality is that policing is hard and dangerous work, confrontations in the street are complicated, and the political uproar since Ferguson has made police more fearful and offenders more brazen. Sometimes the shootings are defensible, and sometimes not, depending on the specific circumstances. But shootings are investigated thoroughly in most cases and the truth does usually emerge.
In Tulsa the police and prosecutors investigated and have charged a white female police officer with first-degree manslaughter for shooting unarmed Terence Crutcher. The district attorney charged Betty Shelby with overreacting to a situation that did not justify lethal force. She will get her day in court and could go to prison for years, so this certainly is no law-enforcement cover-up.
The Charlotte investigation is still underway, but this too fits no easy narrative. The policeman who shot Keith Lamont Scott is black, and so is Charlotte police chief Kerr Putney. There are conflicting accounts about whether Scott had a gun. The video released Friday by Scott’s family is painful to watch but hardly definitive about what happened.
Chief Putney is withholding other videos from the public pending the investigation, a delay that offends distant progressives who want to make political statements. But the goal should be justice, not electing Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and witnesses should be interviewed about what they saw before they can be influenced by publicly released videos.
Time after time in these cases reality has confounded politically motivated snap judgments. In Ferguson, the initial claim was that Darren Wilson, a white cop, shot Michael Brown while he was surrendering with his hands up. But it turned out Brown had scuffled with the cop over his gun, and even Eric Holder’s Justice Department found that the original witnesses weren’t credible and declined to indict Mr. Wilson.
In Baltimore in 2015, the district attorney charged six cops involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray with murder, manslaughter or illegal arrest. But three were acquitted at trial, another was freed after a mistrial, and eventually all charges were dropped in the case. Three of the cops are black, as is Judge Barry Williams, who presided over the trials.
Americans may disagree with these outcomes, but they cannot say that the cases were handled with racial animus or legal indifference. The cases in their various details also do not show that there is some widespread racial bias in American policing. With the exception of Ferguson, the police forces involved in most of these controversial killings are ethnically diverse and many have black chiefs.
In any event, none of these cases justify rioting in Charlotte or anywhere else. A civilized society cannot tolerate vandalism or protests that shut down business in a city every time there is a police shooting.
Political leaders, President Obama above all, should defend public order. Mr. Obama should defend police and the judicial system as they handle these sensitive cases. And he should highlight and work with House Speaker Paul Ryan and other politicians who have shown a commitment to bringing opportunity back to American cities.
One tragedy of the Obama Presidency—perhaps the greatest—is that our first black President will leave office with race relations more polarized than when he was elected with such hope eight years ago. The reasons are more complex than we can offer today. But in the weeks he has left, Mr. Obama could do his country a service if he would resist indulging easy but false narratives and do more to bridge the growing divide between the police and young black Americans.
It Doesn’t Matter That the Cop Who Killed Keith Scott Is Black
Donovan X. Ramsey
Complex.com
Sep 21, 2016
As of Wednesday morning, the most recent story of a black man killed by police is that of Keith Scott in Charlotte. Scott was killed Tuesday and details of the incident are still scant. One of the few bits of information shared by officials and reported by media, however, is that Bentley Vinson, the officer who killed Scott, was also black.
As the country struggles to make sense of Scott’s death in relation to the estimated 193 other black people killed by police so far this year (and 306 in 2015), Vinson’s race is being used by some to dismiss charges that Scott was the victim of racist policing. To reduce the role of anti-blackness in policing to merely the race of officers involved in fatal police encounters is misguided, however. It betrays a profound misunderstanding of the ways racism and anti-blackness work within systems, assumes that black people are free of anti-black bias, and that black officers somehow transcend the police cultures in which they’re steeped.
What we know from police accounts is that four officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department were serving a warrant at an apartment complex when they say a man, later identified as Scott, emerged from his car with a handgun. Police say Scott then got back into his car before coming out for a second time with the gun, posing an “imminent threat.” At least one of officers fired at Scott, killing him.
Witnesses have claimed that Scott was unarmed. Officials insist that he was, however, and have shared little else about in the incident, including video footage from the body cameras some of the officers involved. Curiously, though, the CMPD released officer Vinson’s name to the media the day of the incident, an unusual act for a police department in the early phases of an investigation and something that often hasn’t been done in other high-profile police shooting cases. Of course, within no time, a photo sourced from the CMPD’s official Facebook page surfaced of Vinson—a black man—in uniform surrounded by other smiling black people and colleagues.
The caption from CMPD’s post of the picture reads, “An anonymous donor sent an ice cream truck into the Dillehay neighborhood. Some of the neighbors were still without electricity following the power outage. Metro division officers Vinson, Kennedy, Reiber and Pinckney served sweltering community members. One little girl said, ‘Well now I like the po-po!’”
It should go without saying, with all the nation has learned about policing in the past two years, but the race of the officer who killed Scott has little to no bearing on if Scott himself was killed because he was black. Given the complexity of our system of policing, it is as relevant to the matter as is whether or not that officer loves passing out ice cream.
Studies have shown that black people are not only capable of anti-black bias but that those who’ve been tested for racial bias are evenly split when it comes to pro-white and pro-black attitudes. Even more, research on the impact of police force diversity on officer-involved homicides has found no relationship between the racial representation of police forces and police killings in the cities they serve. In fact, one study revealed that the best way to predict how many police shootings might occur in a city is to look at the size of its black population. All of that without mentioning the troubling accounts from black police officers of the racism they experience on the force and the pressure they often face to engage in race-based policing in the communities they serve.
Ice Cube put it simply in 1988 on N.W.A.’s Fuck tha Police, “But don’t let it be a black and a white one, ‘cause they’ll slam ya down to the street top. Black police showing out for the white cop.” What a 19-year-old Cube understood nearly 30 years ago seems to still elude members of the media and even policymakers today. That’s that there are a number of factors that impact how police officers—yes, even black officers—engage black civilians and suspects, the least of which is shared characteristics.
To be sure, America could benefit from more diversity in its police force, especially in communities of color. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 65 percent of the nation’s 3,109,000 law enforcement officers are white. That number jumps to 70 percent for patrol officers and nearly 80 percent for police supervisors. But, while we’re concerned with the race of cops, we should be as concerned with the culture, policy, and practices that guide their actions.
The issue at hand isn’t the personal feelings of cops who encounter black civilians but the deadly system of policing that criminalizes blackness, actively profiles black people, over-policies our neighborhoods as a matter of policy, and that uses force against us at three times the rate of whites. That is the ugly state of American policing and that truth doesn’t suddenly change when the boys in blue are black.
Voir encore:
Football Américain
Colin Kaepernick au coeur d’une polémique aux Etats-Unis
Marine Couturier, AFP
Francetv
30/08/2016
Boycotter l’hymne américain ? Une hérésie au pays de l’oncle Sam. Pourtant Colin Kaepernick, quaterback des San Francisco 49ers, a refusé vendredi de se lever au moment de l’hymne américain lors d’un match de pré-saison. Sa motivation : protester contre « l’oppression » de la communauté noire aux Etats-Unis. De l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, la polémique enfle portée notamment par le candidat républicain à la Maison Blanche Donald Trump.
Pendant que la France se divise sur la question du burkini, les Etats-Unis ont eux aussi des débats nationaux houleux. La faute – si cela en est une – au joueur de football américain Colin Kaepernick, qui a refusé vendredi de se lever de sa chaise tandis que retentissaient les notes de « La Bannière étoilée » dans le Levi’s Stadium, où son équipe accueillait les Green Bay Packers. Le métis de 28 ans, dont le père biologique était noir mais qui a été adopté et élevé par un couple de Blancs, a ensuite justifié son geste : « Je ne vais pas afficher de fierté pour le drapeau d’un pays qui opprime les Noirs. Il y a des cadavres dans les rues et des meurtriers qui s’en tirent avec leurs congés payés » faisant ainsi référence à de récents abus policiers ayant causé la mort brutale de Noirs non armés.
Des internautes se sont filmés en train de brûler le maillot du quarterback, qui avait pourtant conduit San Francisco jusqu’au Super Bowl 2013 (défaite contre Baltimore 34-31). Pour l’instant, le joueur aux bras tatoués semble pouvoir compter sur le soutien de son club. « Nous reconnaissons le droit à tout individu de choisir de participer, ou non, à la célébration de notre hymne national », ont fait savoir les 49ers, qui ont remporté le Super Bowl à cinq reprises. La Maison Blanche s’est elle clairement démarquée du sportif, en lui reconnaissant toutefois le droit de proférer ses opinions.
Donald Trump prend parti
Lundi, le candidat républicain à la maison Blanche Donald Trump y est allé de sa déclaration lors d’une interview à une radio de Seattle, qualifiant d' »exécrable » la posture de Kaepernick et lui conseillant de « chercher un pays mieux adapté ».
La légende du football américain Jerry Rice a lui aussi pris position sur un message posté sur Twitter :
« Toutes les vies sont importantes. Il se passe tellement de choses dans ce monde aujourd’hui. Est-ce qu’on ne peut pas tous vivre ensemble ? Colin, je respecte votre position mais ne manquez pas de respect au drapeau. »
Kaepernick dans la lignée d’autres sportifs
Par son geste, Kaepernick a emboîté le pas à d’autres joueurs professionnels luttant contre les discriminations raciales ou la violence des armes à feu, parmi lesquels les stars du basket-ball Dwyane Wade, LeBron James ou Carmelo Anthony. Mais, contrairement à ces piliers de la NBA, Kaepernick a délivré son message à un moment très sensible. Aux Etats-Unis s’attaquer au Stars and Stripes (le drapeau) ou au Star-Spangled Banner (l’hymne national) est un jeu très dangereux.
La chanteuse Sinead O’Connor en avait fait les frais en 1990, excluant de se produire dans le New Jersey si l’hymne américain était joué en préambule. L’Irlandaise avait été la cible d’une campagne de rejet, bannie par plusieurs radios. Un quart de siècle plus tard, Colin Kaepernick se retrouve vilipendé sur les réseaux sociaux, des Américains exigeant de la Ligue nationale de football américain (NFL) sa suspension, voire son licenciement.
Accusé de bafouer un symbole et de politiser son sport, Colin Kaepernick s’inscrit aussi dans une lignée d’athlètes protestataires noirs qui ont marqué les Etats-Unis. Inhumé en juin entouré d’hommages planétaires, la légende de la boxe Mohamed Ali avait payé de plusieurs années d’interruption de carrière son refus d’aller combattre au Vietnam. Egalement gravés dans la mémoire collective sont les poings gantés de noir de Tommie Smith et John Carlos, sur le podium du 200 mètres des jeux Olympiques de Mexico de 1968. Ces deux athlètes, dénonçant la ségrégation raciale théoriquement abolie mais encore bien présente alors, ont été boycottés par les médias et honnis durant des décennies, avant d’être réhabilités tardivement.
Au regard de précédents historiques, Colin Kaepernick peut s’attendre à naviguer en mer agitée un bon bout de temps. D’autant que le joueur a promis de continuer à s’asseoir pour les prochains matches. Le feuilleton n’a pas fini d’être alimenté.
Voir aussi:
Colin Kaepernick divise l’Amérique, mais fait des émules
Ce joueur de football américain refuse de se lever quand retentit l’hymne américain avant les matchs, pour protester contre les violences policières. D’autres sportifs commencent à l’imiter
Gilles Biassette
La Croix
06/09/2016
Depuis qu’il reste assis lors de l’hymne d’avant-match, le joueur de football américain Colin Kaepernick est l’objet de vives attaques. Mais il a aussi reçu le soutien d’autres sportifs.
Protestation muette
Pour la troisième fois en moins de deux semaines, Colin Kaepernick ne s’est pas levé jeudi 1er septembre, alors que l’hymne américain retentissait dans le stade de San Diego et que le public, comme les joueurs, se tenaient debout, main sur le cœur et regard rivé sur le drapeau.
Le joueur de 28 ans de l’équipe des « San Francisco 49ers », dont le père biologique était noir et absent, et la mère blanche et pauvre, et qui a été adopté très jeune par un couple de Blancs, proteste à sa façon contre les violences policières. « Je ne vais pas afficher de fierté pour le drapeau d’un pays qui opprime les Noirs », a-t-il expliqué après être resté assis la première fois.
Cet acte lui a valu d’être conspué jeudi à chaque fois qu’il a eu le ballon entre les mains. On ne badine pas avec la bannière étoilée à San Diego, port d’attache de l’immense flotte du Pacifique.
Des soutiens venus du terrain
Cette attitude alimente la polémique outre-Atlantique. Certains internautes se filment même brûlant un maillot frappé du nom de Colin Kaepernick, en dépit de ses exploits passés.
Mais d’autres se ruent pour acheter la tunique, en signe de soutien, au point d’en faire l’un des maillots désormais les plus vendus. Le joueur a promis de donner un million de dollars (900 000 €) à différentes associations intervenant dans les quartiers difficiles du pays.
Mieux encore, d’autres sportifs suivent son exemple. Jeudi, un de ses coéquipiers l’a imité à San Diego. Au même moment, à l’autre extrémité de la côte ouest, à Seattle, Jeremy Lane restait aussi sur son banc avant d’affronter l’équipe d’Oakland.
Dimanche soir, c’est une joueuse de football qui se joignait au mouvement. Megan Rapinoe, 31 ans, posait un genou à terre lorsque les notes de la « bannière étoilée » retentissaient, en signe de solidarité avec Colin Kaepernick.
« C’est vraiment dégoûtant la façon dont il a été traité, la façon dont les médias ont traité cette affaire, dira-t-elle après la partie. Étant homosexuelle, je sais ce que veut dire regarder le drapeau américain en étant consciente qu’il ne protège pas toutes les libertés. »
La Maison-Blanche s’en mêle
La polémique a pris une telle ampleur que la classe politique a été interpellée. Depuis la Chine, où il venait de participer au sommet du G20, Barack Obama a défendu lundi 5 septembre la démarche du joueur, jugeant qu’il avait réussi à attirer l’attention « sur des sujets qui méritent d’être abordés ».
« Il exerce son droit constitutionnel à faire passer un message », a souligné le locataire de la Maison-Blanche. Reconnaissant que cela pouvait être « quelque chose de difficile » à digérer pour les familles de militaires, Barack Obama a estimé que la démarche du joueur pouvait se comprendre.
« Je préfère voir des jeunes gens qui sont impliqués et essayent de concevoir comment ils peuvent participer au débat démocratique plutôt que des gens qui se comportent en spectateurs et ne prêtent pas attention du tout à ce qui se passe », a-t-il conclu.
Gilles Biassette
Profil
Colin Kaepernick, l’homme qui a lancé un débat national sur le patriotisme aux Etats-Unis
LIBERATION
22 septembre 2016
Colin Kaepernick, meneur de jeu des San Francisco 49ers, le 26 août 2016 à Santa Clara en Californie Photo Thearon W. Henderson. AFP
En refusant de se lever pendant l’hymne d’avant-match pour protester contre le racisme de la police américaine, le footballeur américain âgé de 28 ans a lancé une polémique nationale, à tel point que d’autres athlètes américains, comme lui, s’interrogent sur leur rapport au patriotisme.
Colin Kaepernick, l’homme qui a lancé un débat national sur le patriotisme aux Etats-Unis
Le magazine américain Time consacre cette semaine sa couverture au footballeur américain Colin Kaepernick, qui a initié un débat vif dans son pays lorsqu’il a refusé, cet été, de se lever pendant l’hymne américain lors d’un match.
Qui est Colin Kaepernick ? Agé de 28 ans, il joue au poste de quarterback pour les 49ers de San Francisco. Mais ce ne sont pas ses qualités de joueurs qui lui offrent, le 26 août, une notoriété internationale. Ce vendredi-là, au Levi’s Stadium de Californie où son équipe affronte les Green Bay Packets, il reste assis au moment de l’hymne national, alors que tout le monde se lève. Et s’en justifie ensuite : «Je ne vais pas afficher de fierté pour le drapeau d’un pays qui opprime les Noirs.» «Il y a des cadavres dans les rues et des meurtriers qui s’en tirent avec leurs congés payés», explique-t-il.
A lire aussi : Le footballeur Colin Kaepernick snobe l’hymne national dans un geste politique
Son geste a choqué de nombreuses personnes aux Etats-Unis, certains supporters de son équipe mettant le feu à son maillot dans des images diffusées sur les réseaux sociaux. Mais le joueur a tenu bon. «Quand des changements significatifs auront été apportés et que je sentirai que ce drapeau représente ce qu’il doit représenter, que ce pays représente le peuple de la manière dont il doit le faire, alors je me lèverai», a-t-il dit, soutenu par son équipe, qui a expliqué dans un communiqué : «Dans le respect de grands principes américains telles que la liberté de religion et la liberté d’expression, nous reconnaissons le droit d’un individu de participer, ou non, à la célébration de notre hymne national».
Le joueur porte aussi régulièrement des chaussettes figurant des images de porcs en uniforme policier. Dans un message sur Instagram, Kaepernick s’en est expliqué : «Les policiers sans scrupule qui se voient confier des postes dans des services de police mettent en danger non seulement la population mais aussi les policiers ayant de bonnes intentions, car ils créent une atmosphère de tension et de défiance».
Depuis, Colin Kaepernick a aussi suscité un vaste mouvement de soutien : les ventes de son maillot ont explosé. «La seule façon dont je peux vous rendre ce soutien est de faire don de tous les gains que je reçois de ces ventes aux communautés !», a-t-il annoncé sur son compte Instagram.
Ces derniers jours, le footballeur, fort de presque un million d’abonnés sur Twitter, a abondamment tweeté et retweeté des messages sur le meurtre de Terence Crutcher par une policière de l’Oklahoma le 16 septembre.
En lui consacrant sa couverture, le magazine Time explique que Colin Kaepernick a lancé un mouvement de protestation chez les athlètes américains, qui s’interrogent sur la façon dont les Etats-Unis définissent le patriotisme.
Colin Kaepernick (San Francisco) divise les Etats-Unis
L’Equipe
30/08/2016
Le quarterback des San Francisco 49ers a refusé de se lever pour l’hymne national des Etats-Unis, vendredi lors d’un match de pré-saison, créant une polémique dans son pays. Kaepernick a agi de la sorte pour protester contre »l’oppression » de la communauté noire américaine.
Colin Kaepernick avait emmené les San Francisco 49ers au Super Bowl il y a trois ans. Les Californiens avaient été battus par Baltimore. (Reuters)
Aux Etats-Unis, la tradition veut que joueurs, entraîneurs et spectateurs se lèvent et se découvrent la tête pour entonner l’hymne, regard tourné vers le drapeau. Mais, juste avant d’affronter les Green Bay Packers il y a quatre jours, Colin Kaepernick, joueur métis âgé de 28 ans, n’a pas quitté sa chaise. «Je ne vais pas afficher de fierté pour le drapeau d’un pays qui opprime les Noirs, a-t-il ensuite déclaré, faisant référence à de récents abus policiers ayant causé la mort brutale de Noirs non armés. Il y a des cadavres dans les rues et des meurtriers qui s’en tirent avec leurs congés payés.» Kaepernick a suivi d’autres joueurs professionnels luttant contre les discriminations raciales ou la violence des armes à feu, parmi lesquels Dwyane Wade, LeBron James ou Carmelo Anthony.
Mais, contrairement aux stars de la NBA, le quarterback des San Francisco 49ers a délivré son message à un moment très sensible. Aux Etats-Unis on ne s’attaque pas impunément au Stars and Stripes (le drapeau) ou au Star Spangled Banner (l’hymne national). Cela lui vaut aujourd’hui d’être vilipendé sur les réseaux sociaux. Des Américains ont même exigé de la NFL sa suspension, voire son licenciement. Et des internautes se sont filmés en train de brûler le maillot du quarterback des 49ers. La polémique a pris une dimension nationale, quand Donald Trump, le candidat républicain aux prochaines élections présidentielles, a qualifié «d’exécrable» la posture de Kaepernick et lui a conseillé de «chercher un pays mieux adapté».
La Maison Blanche, elle, s’est clairement démarquée du sportif, en lui reconnaissant toutefois le droit de proférer ses opinions. Mais Colin Kaepernick semble pouvoir compter sur le soutien de son club. «Nous reconnaissons le droit à tout individu de choisir de participer, ou non, à la célébration de notre hymne national», ont fait savoir les San Francisco 49ers. Kaepernick a promis de continuer à s’asseoir pour les prochains matches.
Rédaction avec AFP
Voir par ailleurs:
Femme en burkini chassée d’une plage à Villeneuve-Loubet, un coup monté ?
Marie Cardona
Nice-Matin
20/09/2016
La chaîne de télévision australienne Channel 7 a diffusé ce samedi la vidéo d’une femme en burkini se faisant « chasser » d’une plage de Villeneuve-Loubet par des baigneurs. Selon un témoin, la scène est montée de toute pièce.
Selon une vidéo diffusée par une chaîne de la télévision australienne, Zeynab Alshelh, une étudiante de 23 ans, aurait été forcée de quitter une plage de Villeneuve-Loubet où elle s’était installée. En cause? Son burkini, jugé provocateur par d’autres baigneurs.
L’histoire a été reprise par tous les médias et notamment par l’AFP.
Mais selon une mère de famille qui se trouvait sur la plage à ce moment-là, la scène qui s’est déroulée sous ses yeux était plus que suspecte.
« Nous étions installés sur la plage avec mes enfants, quand nous avons vu la caméra débarquer à quelques mètres de nous, explique-t-elle. Ce n’est qu’après qu’un homme et deux femmes en burkini sont arrivés. Ils ont marché quelques minutes le long de la plage, puis sont venus s’installer juste devant l’équipe télé ».
Alors, un coup monté? « On s’est immédiatement posé la question. C’est d’ailleurs pour ça que tous les gens sur la plage regardent dans la direction de la caméra. »
Mais la vidéo diffusée par la chaîne australienne va plus loin. On y voit un homme se diriger vers la caméra et lâcher: « Vous faites demi-tour et vous partez ». Tel qu’est monté le reportage, cette invective semble dirigée à l’encontre des deux femmes en burkini.
Une impression appuyée par la voix off de la vidéo qui confirme: « Nous avons été forcés de partir, car les gens ont dit qu’ils allaient appeler la police. »
Mais il n’en est rien. « L’homme sur la vidéo est mon oncle, atteste notre témoin. Il n’a jamais demandé à ce que ces trois personnes quittent la plage. Il s’adressait à la caméra pour demander au cameraman de partir. Il y avait des enfants sur la plage, dont les nôtres, et on ne voulait pas qu’ils soient filmés. »
La suite de la vidéo montre le même homme en train de téléphoner. « Oui, il appelait la police. Pas pour les faire intervenir pour chasser ces personnes, mais pour demander comment on pouvait faire pour empêcher la caméra de nous filmer, surtout nos enfants ». Et d’ajouter: « A aucun moment des gens sont venus demander aux femmes en burkini de quitter la plage. »
« C’était trop gros pour être vrai »
Une version corroborée par un autre témoin de la scène. « On voyait que c’était scénarisé, c’était trop gros pour être vrai et ça puait le coup monté », raconte Stéphane. Ce père de famille était dans l’eau avec ses enfants, au niveau de la plage privée Corto Maltese, quand il a vu débarquer la petite équipe sur la plage.
« L’homme et les deux femmes sont arrivés presque en courant pour s’installer. En 10 secondes, ils avaient déplié leurs serviettes et planté leur parasol. Ils se sont mis en plein milieu du couloir à jet-ski de la plage privée. Comme ils gênaient, le propriétaire de la plage est sorti leur demander de se pousser. »
Ce n’est qu’après que Stéphane aperçoit la journaliste et son cameraman « planqués » derrière les voitures, en train de filmer. Il raconte qu’à ce moment-là, le propriétaire de la plage a fait entrer le petit groupe dans son restaurant.
« Ils sont ressortis au bout d’un moment. L’homme et les deux femmes ont continué à marcher le long de la plage en direction de la Siesta. Des fois, ils se posaient. Puis ils repartaient. » Le journaliste et le cameraman, qui avaient fait mine de partir, étaient en fait toujours cachés derrière les voitures. « On aurait dit qu’ils attendaient des réactions ».
Stéphane assistera de loin à la scène du baigneur qui pressera les journalistes de quitter les lieux. « J’ai vu ce monsieur au téléphone. Mais j’étais trop loin pour entendre ce qu’il disait. »
Le petit groupe finira par quitter les lieux. « Il y avait un véhicule qui les attendait en haut de la plage, comme pour les exfiltrer au cas où… »
Voir aussi:
Inquirer
Seven and its burkini family owe France an apology
Emma-Kate Symons
The Australian
September 24, 2016
The Seven Network and the pugnacious Muslim Aussie family it flew to the French Riviera with the aim of provoking beachgoers into a “racist” reaction to the “Aussie cossie” burkini owe the traumatised people of Nice and France a swift apology.
The cynical stunt pulled by the Sunday Night program, where it spirited Sydney hijab-proselytising medical student Zeynab Alshelh and her activist parents off to a beach near Nice to “show solidarity” with (radically conservative) Muslims, featured the 23-year-old flaunting her burkini in an obvious attempt to bait Gallic sun lovers into religious and ethnically motivated hatred. Except according to the French people filmed against their will, the claimed “chasing off the beach” that made international headlines never occurred because Seven used hidden camera tactics, selective editing and deliberate distortion to reach its predetermined conclusions.
This unethical exercise in journalism deliberately painted France as “hostile to Muslims” even though the most hostile countries in the world for Muslim women are places such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, where being female entails forcible veiling and the threat of punishment with the lash, prison or worse for flouting bans on driving, playing sport, committing “adultery” or doing much at all without a male guardian.
The manipulation is the latest example of calculated French-bashing fuelled by collusion between the goals of political Islam and compliant media outlets seeking culture clash cliches.
Alshelh and her family, just like her burkini — which leading French Muslim women such as broadcaster Sonia Mabrouk, Charlie Hebdo journalist Zineb El Rhazoui and radicalisation prevention champion Nadia Remadna condemn as a standard bearer of extremism and the retrograde notion that women are impure vessels whose bodies must be covered — are not just your regular mainstream Muslims, as presented in the program. Au contraire.
Alshelh’s father, who appeared in this cringe-worthy report complete with jarring Jaws-like music, is Ghayath Alshelh, head of the Islamic Charity Projects Association in Sydney’s Bankstown.
His association was formed from the hotly contested Lebanese-Ethiopian al-Ahbash movement and repeatedly condemned as a “fringe sect” by prominent mainstream Australian Muslim figures and organisations, who even pushed for what they describe as its radical Muslim radio station 2MFM to be taken off the air. The association, which proclaims “Islam the true religion” on its home page, was forced to defend itself last year after a police counter-terrorism investigation into a student allegedly exposed to violent ideologies drawing on radical Islam in its prayer groups at Epping Boys High.
Beyond the Alshelh family’s zealotry, which puts them firmly in an ultra-orthodox, unrepresentative minority, locals claim Seven hoodwinked us again: the seaside ostracism of this Aussie girl desperate to give a Down Under lesson in tolerance to those xenophobic French never even took place. According to people quoted in the newspaper Nice-Matin, the entire show smelled of a set-up.
No one was hounded off the beach, despite the scripted whining of Seven’s solemn-faced presenter Rahni Sadler and her well-rehearsed talent the Alshelhs. The swimming public were upset to see the camera crew filming them and their children without permission in a country where privacy is legally protected and paparazzi do not have the same rights as they do in Australia to film without consent.
The beachgoers were also well aware France’s highest judicial body had struck down the mayoral burkini ban at Villeneuve-Loubet.
A French mother who witnessed the incident, which she considered “more than suspect”, told Nice-Matin she was sitting on the beach with her family and children when she saw the camera planted only a few metres away. “And it was only at that point the man and two women in burkinis arrived. They walked up and down the beach for several minutes, then they stopped and sat down right in front of the TV crew.
“We immediately asked ourselves if it was a set-up. And that was why everyone on the beach started looking in the direction of the TV crew.
“The man on the video (who said, ‘You turn around and you leave’) was my uncle. He never asked these three people to leave the beach. He spoke to the camera because he was asking the cameraman to leave.
“There were children on the beach, including our own, and we didn’t want them to be filmed.
“Yes, he called the police, but not to get them to chase these people away; instead it was to ask how he could stop them from filming us, and especially our children.
“At no point did anyone come and demand these people leave the beach.”
Another witness told Nice-Matin: “We could see it was being dramatised, it was too much to be true and it stank of a set-up. The man and the two women almost ran to get themselves set-up. In 10 seconds they had laid out their towels and planted their umbrella. They put themselves right in the middle of the jet-ski corridor of the private beach. Because they were in the way of others, the owner of the beach came out and asked them to move.”
It was at this moment that the witness Stephane saw the journalist and her cameraman “planted” behind cars, filming. “The man and the two women continued to walk the length of the beach … sometimes they sat down. Then they started moving again.” But the journalist and cameraman, who had given the impression of leaving, were in fact hidden all the time behind the cars. “You would say they were waiting for some reactions,” he said. “There was a car waiting for them at the top of the beach, as if it was going to spirit them away them just in case.”
Zeynab Alshelh still insisted on air that she was “threatened” and told to leave as she rambled undergraduate-style: “At least in Australia if there is some racism here and there and whatever, but like, the government does not say that it’s OK to be racist towards anyone.”
L’Express magazine attacked the Sunday Night beat-up as a “caricature of France as racist” and publications including Europe1 online and Causeur responded caustically to Australians giving “moral lessons” to France, mocking our “multicultural paradise” and citing the Cronulla race riots and ethnically targeted crimes as evidence. (Alshelh, who denies the set-up, tells Inquirer she “won’t comment on financing questions”, directing inquiries to Seven, but contradicting the show’s script in admitting the network contacted her family first about the French trip).
The shameful Seven report went viral globally thanks to an international media thirsty for stereotypes about France’s unsubstantiated rising tide of Islamophobia. It was dishonest sensationalism that deliberately skewed complex issues surrounding secularism a la francaise and surging religious fundamentalism of the Islamist variety in the context of ever-present terrorist threats and a state of emergency.
Next time Seven should finance Zeynab Alshelh trying her luck taking off her veil in Saudi Arabia or Iran, or perhaps the trainee doctor could use hidden camera techniques in Egypt on doctors practising illegal female genital mutilation on the vast majority of little girls.
But as she confesses to Inquirer: “I’m not going to put myself in that kind of danger — and anyway, they are not preaching secularism (like France) they are just doing whatever they want to do.”
jcdurbant 
IT’S STUPID, STUPID ! (Guess what liberal Justice Ginsberg did after spilling the beans on Kaepernick’s national anthem protest)
“I think it’s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act. If they want to be stupid, there’s no law that should be preventive. If they want to be arrogant, there’s no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.”
RBG
https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/ruth-bader-ginsburg-on-trump-kaepernick-and-her-lifelong-love-of-the-law-132236633.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb
« Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh. »
Ginsburg
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner
On Monday, that tension boiled over into an outright paradox: A (white) liberal icon condescendingly maligned an emerging (black) protester for failing to pay respect to a song that celebrates slavery. (…) Ginsburg is not racist, but she is notably detached from the brewing social unrest over racist police abuse. Her patronizing comments reflect an obvious desire for a more respectful type of protest, and a profound misunderstanding about what Kaepernick hopes to achieve. It is only “dumb” and “arrogant” to protest the national anthem for reasons that are dumb and arrogant. Kaepernick’s reasons are neither: He is refusing to show respect for an anthem whose full lyrics cheer the death of recently freed slaves, and doing so to draw attention to the oppression of black people. His supporters have also used the protest to draw attention to police brutality—an issue Ginsburg discussed empathetically in that Yahoo News interview just before Couric brought up Kaepernick. For Ginsburg to call these protests “arrogance” belies a misapprehension of their basic purpose.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/10/ruth_bader_ginsburg_s_kaepernick_comments_end_the_notorious_rbg_myth.html
J’aimeJ’aime
OBAMA LEGACY
Obama entered office in 2008 with promises of ending racial animosity. Instead, he chose to stoke an us/them mentality to ensure his reelection, always pitting a coalition of victimized minorities against a shrinking and culpable white privileged majority. The Professor Gates melodrama, the call for Latinos to punish their enemies at the polls, the politicization of the Trayvon Martin shooting trial, and the opportunistic commentary on the Ferguson and Baltimore riots only reified Obama’s early racialist polarization—which was evident in Dreams from My Father, during his two-decade apprenticeship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his “typical white person” and “clingers” campaign speeches.
The result is that race relations have not been been this strained since the 1960s urban riots. Race now permeates even the most unexpected facets of American life: multimillionaire athletes refuse to stand for the National Anthem, arguing their racist country is not worth veneration; multimillionaire Hollywood actors and actresses adjudicate Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy awards as fair or unfair on the basis of proportional racial representation. Multimillionaire rappers—many of them White House visitors—call for violence against the police in their lyrics or adorn their album covers with pictures of black gangbangers toasting the corpse of a white judge on the White House lawn.
Yet in terms of family income and employment, the African-American middle and lower-middle classes are faring poorly under Obama. The next president will face an existential dilemma. Can the United States remain the only country in history to be truly multiracial without segregating into enclaves and without serial racial rioting and violence? Will renewed calls for integration, assimilation, and tolerance be seen as too little too late?
Abroad, President Obama is leaving behind a new world in which the United States has lost the ability to deter enemies and ceded influence to regional and often hostile hegemonies. China is recreating the wartime Japanese East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Vladimir Putin is incrementally reassembling the republics and buffer zones of the old Soviet Union. Iran, empowered by both its new Hezbollah/Syria/Russia axis and the appeasement of the U.S.-brokered Iran deal, is seeking to adjudicate who enters and leaves the Persian Gulf, and for what reasons.
Radical Islam has left much of Libya and the Iraq/Syria borderlands a wasteland after the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and our lead-from-behind bewilderment in Libya. Millions of migrants from these war zones have entered Europe, the vast majority of them young, male, Muslim, and unvetted.
Given radical defense cuts and criticism of past American leadership, the United States is increasingly not in the position of reassuring its former allies that it can help to defend them from Chinese, Russian, Iranian, or Islamic aggression. Sometimes it is unsure whether old allies like Israel, the Philippines, or Turkey are really allies at all any more. The next president may well be facing even more regional wars. To keep the peace, he or she will have to restore U.S. credibility and deterrence—a far harder task than losing both after Obama’s pseudo red-, dead-, and step-over lines.
Every president argues that he “inherited a mess.” And they often do. Gerald Ford in 1974 came into office with a post-Watergate hangover and a rekindling of war in Vietnam. Jimmy Carter dealt with the blowback from the Ford-Nixon pardon and rampant inflation. Ronald Reagan faced stagflation, oil embargoes, a Carter foreign policy in ruins, an ascendant Soviet Union, and a revolutionary and hostage-taking Iran. George W. Bush dealt with the loss of U.S. deterrence against Osama bin Laden and a recession.
In this vein, Obama argued that he inherited a catastrophic war in Iraq and a ruined economy. Not quite. Fracking and horizontal drilling came despite, not because of, his efforts and gave Obama a trillion-dollar stimulus of record low energy prices and near energy self-sufficiency. When he entered office, Iraq was not just quiet, but won, so much so that both Obama and Vice President Biden at various times would claim Iraq as their own—their “greatest achievement” as well as “sovereign,” “stable,” and “self-reliant.” Obama entered office four months after the September 2008 economic downturn, at a time when markets were stabilizing, the TARP bailouts were in place, and talk of a meltdown had largely ended.
The next president will be facing economic stagnation, record debt, racial division, looming large and ongoing small wars abroad, and a health care system in ruins. Common to all these problems is that tough solutions—fiscal discipline, recalibrating the tax code, restoration of deterrence, and a new health insurance model—will be as controversial and painful as is the current unsustainable slide into chaos.
Currently, President Obama envisions his last four months in office as running out his fourth quarter clock. By removing himself from visible leadership this summer, Obama had mostly stopped commenting on matters of race, the economy, foreign affairs, and Obamacare. He learned once again that the more he stayed on the golf course, vacationed at Martha’s Vineyard, or entertained celebrities at the White House, the more Americans did not see or hear their President, and thus the more they liked the idea, rather than the reality, of him as president. And when two unattractive presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump filled the ensuing media void, President Obama’s approval numbers returned to 50%.
Obama plans to coast through to January 2017, running the presidency as a public relations office—in hopes that the flammable detritus of his ideologically driven policies will not ignite until his predecessor is in office. Pity whoever that may be.
J’aimeJ’aime
Vous avez dit pompiers pyromanes ?
Khan said Trump and his surrogates must « calm down » supporters and help them transition out of election mode, but he defended the tens of thousands who have protested Trump, some even violently. Despite calling for a peaceful transition, Khan said the protests are indicative of how many people have been intimidated and feel that their rights have not been fully guaranteed.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/khizr-khan-obama-should-defend-those-harassed-by-trump-supporters/article/2607161
J’aimeJ’aime
ALL LIVES MATTER
« It had nothing to do with race. It just happened they were black, and my grandmother happened to be white. »
Grant Dow
« We all know what would happen if this crime was white on black. »
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php…
« Had the races been reversed, the entire country would be burning from the Black Lives Matter protests. »
http://usherald.com/83-year-old-white-woman-beaten-set-fi…/…
J’aimeJ’aime
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE FUCK THE POLICE !
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brazil-police-strike-anarchy_us_589cb705e4b09bd304c09df3?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003
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BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU (Overpaid and pampered NFL kneelers with a totally disproportionate 75% African-American share of a 14-billion dollar market could soon find out their mainly red-state America audience has no patience with gratuitous insults to the National Anthem and flag)
The majority of the viewing audience is not young, hip, and loyal as hyped, but, even if fading, still largely reflects the majorities in red-state America that have no patience with gratuitous insults to the National Anthem and flag. The NFL apparently never grasped the political truism that you never insult your base and core supporters; sympathetic CNN talking heads and the solidarity of progressive political activists will not turn around sagging revenues, but will only contribute to them.
Outside the NFL bubble today, most of America, to the extent it still watches, now sees Sunday afternoon pop demonstrations as increasingly a farce, played out among players who appear neither exploited nor as exemplary model sportsmen, but rather as overpaid and pampered.
If players were concerned about violence and injustice, why not collect a voluntary 10 percent contribution from the league’s multimillionaire players and use it to fund programs that address systematic and lethal violence in inner-city communities such as Baltimore or Chicago? And if ethics and values are the players’ issues, why over the last decade has there been an increase in player off-field violence and arrests, often marked by well-publicized violence against women?
The owners, again fairly or not, are not viewed any longer so much as maverick tycoons and eccentric entrepreneurs or philanthropic regional family dynasties of the past, but rather as billionaire corporate magnates who invest their riches in glitzy cultural trophies and expect the state to subsidize their excesses.
The NFL is said to reflect a progressive 21st-century culture. But if so, it is hardly ethnically and racially diverse. Instead, the league is based on old-fashioned meritocratic criteria, and thus participation is based solely on athletic talent and skill-sets. That admirable trait nonetheless ensures that the NFL is antithetical to the entire progressive dogma of proportional representation and disparate impact that demand even quasi-public entities “look like us.” And thus, despite the absence of racism or deliberate exclusion, elsewhere non-diverse businesses or government subsidized operations still must make the necessary inclusive efforts to diversify. Surely there are skilled Asian-American and Latino athletes who could be mentored and integrated into a lucrative and prestigious league whose players are about 75 percent African-American — a participation rate over six times disproportionate in terms of demographical realities. Again, these are left-wing mantras that a left-wing NFL apparently feels do not apply to itself…
Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/451695/trump-nfl-problems-house-cards
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WHAT IF THEY HAD A PROTEST AND NOBODY CAME ? (The end of racism as we know it: Look what they’ve done to my victimization, Ma !)
The recent protests by black players in the National Football League were rather sad for their fruitlessness. They may point to the end of an era for black America, and for the country generally—an era in which protest has been the primary means of black advancement in American life. There was a forced and unconvincing solemnity on the faces of these players as they refused to stand for the national anthem. They seemed more dutiful than passionate, as if they were mimicking the courage of earlier black athletes who had protested: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, fists in the air at the 1968 Olympics; Muhammad Ali, fearlessly raging against the Vietnam War; Jackie Robinson, defiantly running the bases in the face of racist taunts. The NFL protesters seemed to hope for a little ennoblement by association.(…) For the NFL players there was no real sacrifice, no risk and no achievement. Still, in black America there remains a great reverence for protest. Through protest—especially in the 1950s and ’60s—we, as a people, touched greatness. Protest, not immigration, was our way into the American Dream. Freedom in this country had always been relative to race, and it was black protest that made freedom an absolute. It is not surprising, then, that these black football players would don the mantle of protest. The surprise was that it didn’t work. They had misread the historic moment. They were not speaking truth to power. Rather, they were figures of pathos, mindlessly loyal to a black identity that had run its course. What they missed is a simple truth that is both obvious and unutterable: The oppression of black people is over with. This is politically incorrect news, but it is true nonetheless. We blacks are, today, a free people. It is as if freedom sneaked up and caught us by surprise. (…) Freedom came to blacks with an overlay of cruelty because it meant we had to look at ourselves without the excuse of oppression. Four centuries of dehumanization had left us underdeveloped in many ways, and within the world’s most highly developed society. When freedom expanded, we became more accountable for that underdevelopment. So freedom put blacks at risk of being judged inferior, the very libel that had always been used against us. To hear, for example, that more than 4,000 people were shot in Chicago in 2016 embarrasses us because this level of largely black-on-black crime cannot be blamed simply on white racism. (…) That’s why, in the face of freedom’s unsparing judgmentalism, we reflexively claim that freedom is a lie. We conjure elaborate narratives that give white racism new life in the present: “systemic” and “structural” racism, racist “microaggressions,” “white privilege,” and so on. All these narratives insist that blacks are still victims of racism, and that freedom’s accountability is an injustice. We end up giving victimization the charisma of black authenticity. Suffering, poverty and underdevelopment are the things that make you “truly black.” Success and achievement throw your authenticity into question. (…) For any formerly oppressed group, there will be an expectation that the past will somehow be an excuse for difficulties in the present. This is the expectation behind the NFL protests and the many protests of groups like Black Lives Matter. The near-hysteria around the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and others is also a hunger for the excuse of racial victimization, a determination to keep it alive. To a degree, black America’s self-esteem is invested in the illusion that we live under a cloud of continuing injustice. (…) Watching the antics of Black Lives Matter is like watching people literally aspiring to black victimization, longing for it as for a consummation. But the NFL protests may be a harbinger of change. They elicited considerable resentment. There have been counterprotests. TV viewership has gone down. Ticket sales have dropped. What is remarkable about this response is that it may foretell a new fearlessness in white America—a new willingness in whites (and blacks outside the victim-focused identity) to say to blacks what they really think and feel, to judge blacks fairly by standards that are universal. We blacks have lived in a bubble since the 1960s because whites have been deferential for fear of being seen as racist. The NFL protests reveal the fundamental obsolescence—for both blacks and whites—of a victim-focused approach to racial inequality. It causes whites to retreat into deference and blacks to become nothing more than victims. It makes engaging as human beings and as citizens impermissible, a betrayal of the sacred group identity. Black victimization is not much with us any more as a reality, but it remains all too powerful as a hegemony.
Shelby Steele
https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-protest-has-lost-its-power-1515800438
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LOOK WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO MY FLAG, MA ! (Guess who on the eve of Independence day made Nike nix Betsy Ross flag shoes – much to the delight of sneaker collectors ?)
« After images of the shoe were posted online, Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery, the people said, » per the WSJ. « Some users on social media responded to posts about the shoe with similar concerns. Mr. Kaepernick declined to comment. »
The « Betsy Ross » sneaker was supposed to feature a red, white, and blue color scheme with an image of the « Betsy Ross » flag — an American flag with just 13 stars in a circle to represent the 13 original colonies — embroidered on the back. After seeing a publicity still of the shoe, though, Kaepernick and others claimed that the « Betsy Ross » flag, which flew at the nation’s founding, could be construed as a symbol of approval for slavery, white nationalism, and white supremacy.
Nike had, it seems, already completed production on the shoe when Kaepernick complained, and was forced to recall the sneakers from stores at what is likely an incredible cost.
Not all of them made it back to the manufacturer, though. The Wall Street Journal reports that sneaker collecters are snapping up pairs of the « Betsy Ross » Air Max 1 USA on secondary sale sites for as much as $800.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/49067/nike-pulls-american-flag-sneaker-after-complaint-emily-zanotti
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WHAT POLITIFACT MESSAGING AND RACIAL POT-STIRRING ? (It’s not murder but let’s not focus too much on the linguistics)
« When the shootings are viewed, as they must be, in light of all the surrounding circumstances and what Wilson knew at the time, as established by the credible physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, it was not unreasonable for Wilson to fire on Brown until he stopped moving forward and was clearly subdued. Although, with hindsight, we know that Brown was not armed with a gun or other weapon, this fact does not render Wilson’s use of deadly force objectively unreasonable. Again, the key question is whether Brown could reasonably have been perceived to pose a deadly threat to Wilson at the time he shot him regardless of whether Brown was armed. Sufficient credible evidence supports Wilson’s claim that he reasonably perceived Brown to be posing a deadly threat. First, Wilson did not know that Brown was not armed at the time he shot him, and had reason to suspect that he might be when Brown reached into the waistband of his pants as he advanced toward Wilson. See Loch v. City of Litchfield, 689 F.3d 961, 966 (8th Cir. 2012) (holding that “[e]ven if a suspect is ultimately ‘found to be unarmed, a police officer can still employ deadly force if objectively reasonable.’”) (quoting Billingsley v. City of Omaha, 277 F.3d 990, 995 (8th Cir. 2002)); Reese v. Anderson, 926 F.2d 494, 501 (5th Cir. 1991) (“Also irrelevant is the fact that [the suspect] was actually unarmed. [The officer] did not and could not have known this.”); Smith v. Freland, 954 F.2d 343, 347 (noting that “unarmed” does not mean “harmless) (6th Cir. 1992). While Brown did not use a gun on Wilson at the SUV, his aggressive actions would have given Wilson reason to at least question whether he might be armed, as would his subsequent forward advance and reach toward his waistband. This is especially so in light of the rapidly-evolving nature of the incident. Wilson did not have time to determine whether Brown had a gun and was not required to risk being shot himself in order to make a more definitive assessment.
Eric Holder (Obama Dpt of Justice)
Cliquer pour accéder à doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf
« I don’t know if the legalistic distinction intensifies the anger, but it does feel like an attempt to shift the debate from a discussion about the killing of black and brown people by police. This is unfortunate, because rather than discussing the need for de-escalation tactics and relations between police and communities of color, this has become a conversation about legal terms. Quite frankly, it’s a distraction that doesn’t help the discussion. »
Jean Brown (Texas Christian University)
In discussing the case with legal experts, however, we found broad consensus that « murder » was the wrong word to use — a legal point likely familiar to Harris, a longtime prosecutor, and Warren, a law professor. In fact, two other Democratic senators with law degrees now running for president — Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand — more accurately referred to it as a killing.
That said, experts who have studied police-related deaths and race relations said that focusing too much on the linguistics in controversial cases comes with its own set of problems.
« I don’t know if the legalistic distinction intensifies the anger, but it does feel like an attempt to shift the debate from a discussion about the killing of black and brown people by police, » said Jean Brown, who teaches journalism at Texas Christian University and specializes in media representations of African Americans. « This is unfortunate, because rather than discussing the need for de-escalation tactics and relations between police and communities of color, this has become a conversation about legal terms. Quite frankly, it’s a distraction that doesn’t help the discussion. »
Because the significance of Harris’ and Warrens’ use of the word is open to some dispute, we won’t be rating their tweets on the Truth-O-Meter. Neither campaign responded to inquiries for this article.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/14/death-michael-brown-legal-facts-democratic
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WHAT NONSTOP COSMIC VIRTUE SIGNALING FROM THE PRIVILEGED AND LOCALLY CLUELESS WOKE ? (From the Pope to Democrat presidential candidates or big-city mayors, who cares about the real-life inner-city black on black carnage in progressive-run cities with strict gun control laws ?)
Big-city mayors are especially culpable when it comes to ignoring felonies in their midst, preferring to hector the misdemeanors of the universe. Notice how New York Mayor Bill De Blasio lords over the insidious deterioration of his city while he lectures on cosmic white supremacy.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg used to sermonize to the nation about gun-control, global warming, the perils of super-sized soft drinks, smoking, and fatty-foods in his efforts to virtue signal his moral fides—even as his New York was nearly paralyzed by the 2010 blizzard that trapped millions of his city’s residents in their homes due to inept and incompetent city efforts to remove snow. Or is the “Bloomberg syndrome” worse than that—in the sense that sounding saintly in theory psychologically compensates for being powerless in fact? Or is it a fashion tic of the privileged to show abstract empathy?
In the last years of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s governorship, Arnold more or less gave up on the existential crises of illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, soaring taxes, water shortages, decrepit roads and bridges, homelessness, plummeting public school performance, and a huge exodus out of state of middle-class Californians.
Instead he began to lecture the state, the nation, and indeed the world on the need for massive wind and solar projects and assorted green fantasies. His old enemies, jubilant that they had aborted his early conservative reform agenda, began to praise him both for his green irrelevancies and for his neutered conservatism—to the delight of the outgoing Arnold who was recalibrating his return to celebrity Hollywood.
More recently, we often see how local sheriffs become media-created philosophers eager to blame supposed national bogeymen for mass shootings in their jurisdictions— killings that sometimes are at least exacerbated by the utter incompetence of local law enforcement chiefs.
Do we remember the horrific 2011 Tucson shooter, the mass-murdering ghoul who mowed down 19 people, killing six and severely wounding Representative Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.)? Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, without any evidence, immediately claimed that conservative anti-government hate speech had set off the unhinged shooter.
One might have thought from Dupnik’s loud blame-game commentary that supposed outgunned deputies on duty had shot it out with the killer in a running gun battle, and that he was furious that talk radio or right-wingers had somehow impeded him from getting enough bullets or guns to his men to protect the victims from such a right-wing ideologue.
Hardly. This shooter had devoured both the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf. He was mentally unstable, drug addled, and without coherent views on contemporary issues, and thus no foot soldier in some vast right-wing conspiracy or any other conspiracy. He was certainly less connected to the Right than the Washington, D.C. shooter who tried to take out much of the Republican House leadership in 2017 was connected to the Left.
The next time a legislator, mayor, or governor rails about plastic straws or the Paris Climate Accord, be assured that his state’s roads are clogged, his public schools failing—and he is clueless or indifferent about it.
Again, no matter. The ubiquitous Dupnik in his efforts to translate his own incompetence and failure to secure the area where Giffords was to speak into media-driven celebrity, in cheap fashion blasted the Tea Party, critics of President Obama, and, of course, Rush Limbaugh as the culprits.
In truth, security in the supermarket parking lot where Giffords and others were shot was nearly nonexistent, a fact Dupnik never really addressed. He seemed unworried that he had not sent out deputies to ensure a U.S. congresswoman’s safety while conducting an open-air meeting with her constituents.
Florida Sheriff Scott Israel sought national media attention for trying to connect the horrific Parkland Florida mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (17 dead), which took place in his jurisdiction, to the National Rifle Association and Republican politicians in general. But it was Israel’s own Broward County Sheriff’s Office that responded slowly to the killings. In some cases, Israel’s officers exhibited timidity and refused to enter the building to confront the deranged mass shooter.
Before Israel lectured an international television audience on the evils of lax gun laws he might have at least ensured that his own sheriffs were willing to risk their lives to protect the endangered innocent.
If we sometimes wonder why for years saintly Apple, Facebook, and Google have thrived in a sea of homelessness, amid pot-holed streets lined with strapped employees living in their cars, a good indication might be that the cosmic social justice so often voiced as penance by their woke multibillionaire bosses exempts them from worrying about the disasters in their midst.
Pope Francis recently lambasted a number of European countries and leaders for their apparent efforts to secure their national borders against massive illegal immigration from North Africa and the Middle East. Francis plugged European ecumenicalism and seemed to dismiss the populist and nationalist pushback of millions of Europeans, who see the EU as both anti-democratic and a peril to their own traditions and freedoms as citizens.
However, before Francis chastised the continent for its moral failings, he might have explained to Italians or Greeks worried over their open borders why the Vatican enjoys massive walls to keep the uninvited out and yet why other European countries should not emulate the nation-state Vatican’s successful preemptive fortifications.
Better yet, the pope might have taken a more forceful stance against the decades-long and ongoing legal dilemmas of hundreds of global Catholic Clergy, who have proven to be pedophiles and yet were not turned over to law enforcement. The cosmic idea of a United Europe is easy to preach about, but reining in what is likely an epidemic of child-molesting clergy is messy. Francis’s frequent abstract moralizing is quite at odds with either his inability or unwillingness to reform pathways to the priesthood, some of whose members have ruined thousands of lives.
What was lacking in the recent Democratic debates were concrete answers to real problems—as opposed to candidates’ nonstop cosmic virtue signaling. It is easy to blast “white supremacy” and “the gun culture” from a rostrum. But no one on stage seemed to care about the great challenge of our age, the inner-city carnage that takes thousands of young African-American lives each year. The inner-city murdering is tragically almost exclusively a black-on-black phenomenon (even rare interracial homicides are disproportionally committed by African-Americans) that occurs in progressive-run cities with strict gun control laws.
When leaders virtue signal about global or cosmic sin, it is often proof they have no willingness or power to address any concrete crisis. The public tires of such empty platitudes because they also see the culpable trying to divert attention from their own earthly failure by loudly appealing to a higher moral universe.
More mundanely, there is the role of hypocrisy: elites themselves never suffer the consequences of their own ethical inaction while the public never sees any benefit from their moral rhetoric. Illegal immigration is not a personal issue for Pope Francis, and most Europeans have more concrete things to worry about than lectures on populism and nationalism.
In the same fashion, New Yorkers in 2011 were worried more about the piles of snow on the sidewalks than they felt threatened by 32-ounce Cokes—while realizing that no snow blocked either the Bloomberg official or private residence.
Note a recent inexplicable Zogby poll that indicated 51 percent of blacks and Hispanics might support Donald Trump. How would such a supposedly counterintuitive result even be possible?
I have a suggestion: minority communities live first-hand with the violence and dangers of the gang gun culture. More policing and incarceration of guilty felons improve their lives. Secure borders mean fewer drug dealers and cartel smugglers in local communities, fewer schools swamped with non-English speakers, and social services not overwhelmed with impoverished non-Americans.
These can all be real concerns for beleaguered minorities. Yet they are virtue-signaled away by progressive elites whose own power and money allow them to navigate around the consequences of their own liberal fantasies that fall on distant others.
Add in a booming economy, rising incomes, and low unemployment for minorities, and the world of shrill yelling on the debate stage about “white privilege” seems some sort of an irrelevant fixation of the elite and privileged, akin to showing off a Gucci bag or Porsche Cayenne—but otherwise nothing to do with dangerous streets, wrecked schools, whizzing bullets, and social services that are becoming inoperative.
The next time a legislator, mayor, or governor rails about plastic straws or the Paris Climate Accord, be assured that his state’s roads are clogged, his public schools failing—and he is clueless or indifferent about it.
Victor Davis Hanson
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WHAT ABOUT BLACK ON BLACK VIOLENCE FOR A FATHERLESS GENERATION ?
93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. The left’s rebuttal is that that 84 percent of white homicide victims are killed by other whites, but The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley points out that the white crime rate is « much lower than the black rate. »
« Blacks commit violent crimes at 7 to 10 times the rate that whites do. » Blacks committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008, despite composing just 13 percent of the population. Across the same timeframe, whites committed 45 percent of homicides while composing 77% of the population, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Black crime is even more prevalent in the country’s largest cities and counties. Heather Mac Donald writes in her book The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe that in Chicago, IL, blacks committed 76 percent of all homicides, despite composing 35 percent of the city’s population. Blacks also accounted for 78 percent of all juvenile arrests. Whites, who compose 28 percent of the city’s population, committed 4 percent of its homicides and 3.5 percent of its juvenile arrests. Hispanics, who compose 30 percent of the city’s population, committed 19 percent of its homicides and 18 percent of its juvenile arrests.
Blacks are 10 percent of the population in Los Angeles, CA, but commit 42 percent of its robberies and 34 percent of its felonies. Whites make up 29 percent of the city’s population, and commit 5 percent of its robberies and 13 percent of its felonies. In New York City, blacks committed « 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime, » despite only composing 23 percent of the population, said Mac Donald in a Hillsdale speech. Additionally, 2009 Bureau of Justice Statistics numbers show that in 2009, « blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties in the country, despite only comprising roughly 15 percent of the population in these counties. »
There were almost 6,000 blacks killed by other blacks in 2015. By contrast, only 258 blacks were killed by police gunfire that year.
The percentage of blacks arrested for crimes is consistent with police reports.
This is according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, as well as this 1985 study: “Even allowing for the existence of discrimination in the criminal justice system, the higher rates of crime among black Americans cannot be denied,” wrote James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein in their classic 1985 study, “Crime and Human Nature.” “Every study of crime using official data shows blacks to be overrepresented among persons arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for street crimes.” This was true decades before the authors put it to paper, and it remains the case decades later. “The overrepresentation of blacks among arrested persons persists throughout the criminal justice system,” wrote Wilson and Herrnstein. “Though prosecutors and judges may well make discriminatory judgments, such decisions do not account for more than a small fraction of the overrepresentation of blacks in prison.” This data disproves the notion that racism is what drives higher rates of arrests among the blacks than among whites or broader America.
According to Riley, « Black crime rates were lower in the 1940s and 1950s, when black poverty was higher » and « racial discrimination was rampant and legal. » If it’s not racism and poverty that are blame for the high black crime rate, then what is?
According to Mac Donald, « A straight line can be drawn between family breakdown and youth violence. » As economist Thomas Sowell points out, before the 1960s « most black children were raised in two-parent families. » In 2013, over 72 percent of blacks were born out of wedlock. In Cook County –which Chicago belongs to – 79 percent of blacks were born to single mothers in 2003, while only 15 percent of whites were born to single mothers. « Until that gap closes, the crime gap won’t close, either, » writes Mac Donald.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/7441/7-statistics-you-need-know-about-black-black-crime-aaron-bandler
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