The images of racist assaults, both physical and verbal taking over every nook and cranny of America are evident every day. Unfortunately more and more, those who are supposed to protect the people are indeed the worst transgressors against the very people they are sworn to protect and serve.
Yet my response to some of the instances where these incidents occur is not alarmist as some other folks might be. I certainly would not encourage anyone to approach me with any form of racism. Nevertheless. in every tragedy there are opportunities. As I said in a recent article negative things forces us to adjust and adapt to changes and events for our own survival. Those of all species which refuses to adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of our planet eventually become extinct.
The disrespect of black folk continues. And it continues to be captured on video. A black woman in Oregon was allegedly called out of her name and assaulted by a food truck owner, all because she tried to pay for her food with change. According to Willamette Week, Carlotta Washington says she was called a “nigger” by Islam Elmasry after she tried to pay for her lunch with quarters (not pennies, mind you).
In a short video provided to the outlet by a bystander, Elmasry can be seen telling Washington to “get the fuck out from here” and calling her a “stupid bitch,” after throwing a Gatorade bottle at her for confronting him.
In a portion not captured on video, Washington says Elmasry sprayed her with sriracha chili sauce, which was confirmed to the news outlet by witness Rachel Good, who said she found Washington’s shirt, face, and shoulders covered with the Thai hot sauce. “It was in my eyes and all on my skin. It was burning terribly,” Washington says. After Washington asked that police be called, Elmasry was booked into Multnomah County jail on charges of misdemeanor harassment and assault. Bail is set at $4,000.
Adverse situations are supposed to force us to make changes in our lives. We are supposed to learn new ways of doing things, “when one door is closed many more is opened”[Robert Nesta Marley] Those doors, however, generally gets opened when we go knocking because you can bet your bottom dollar that the doors will not come looking for you. The process of adaptation of which I speak requires a paradigm shift in the way we see ourselves deserving of respect and dignity.
Once we have arrived at the point where we recognize that we are the masters of our own destiny, we begin to recognize that if we are to survive we must take on the responsibilities which guarantee not just our wellbeing but our very survival. We will not have full autonomy over all aspects of our lives, particularly in a country in which we are a minority but we darn sure can begin the educational process of self-preservation through self-empowerment, That self-empowerment begins with education for our children, saving our money, starting and supporting black businesses, and ensuring that we teach our youngsters the value and importance of good monetary stewardship.
The harsh treatment meted out to black people at Starbucks coffee shops, waffle-houses, food trucks and other places in which blacks struggle to be treated respectfully should be a motivating factor for all of us to get our house in order. What is stopping African Americans from having their own coffee shops and waffle houses? In the video above the man in the food truck clearly came to this country and has learned not to respect blacks. From the sound of his accent, he clearly is not too long off the boat but he already has a business going. And what do you know blacks are there bleeding their money.
Look, it is your money spend it where you want to, but understand that when you do that what you are doing is handing over your power. Is it laziness, lack of ambition, or is it ignorance, Could it be all of the above? What would happen if Blacks retained some of the 1.2 trillion dollars we spent last year. Better yet where would we be if we spent a small portion of that money on new startups, or even sending our children to college.
Look around you Black America, in your closets, in your garage, around your necks, on your fingers, on your feet, on your backs and generally around that apartment you are renting did you really need that new pair of expensive over-priced sneakers? Did you need all of that junk you spent your paychecks on, or do you think that maybe, just maybe you could have saved a few hundred of those dollars you squandered?
The few dollars blacks spend at black barbershops and at black hairdressing salons is mere peanuts compared to the over one trillion spent last year. The sad truth is that those monies are generally spent as part of the preparation so that black people may go out to clubs, restaurants, hotels, and other places which are generally not black-owned. I love all people, nevertheless, we have to look after ourselves first, empower ourselves instead of begging others to accept us and treat us well. Seventy-eight (78) years after they kicked Marcus Garvey out of this country for teaching this message the need is just as great, and the task just as urgent. The question is whether or not this message will seep through to Black Americans and in a collective way they will begin to digest it?. Only time will tell.
People discuss racism in the abstract as if its a new strain of deadly virus for which there is no antidote. In an effort not to offend sensibilities we tiptoe around this insidious and deadly scourge without discussing the most important aspect of racism which is the critical issue of attribution.
Look, I get the idea of not alienating allies in any war, but the idea that white liberals who are finally on the side of whats right by finally standing up for human dignity and decency would be offended if we call out white racism is absurd. Those who would be offended by our direct attribution of racism to the rightful perpetrators were never our allies in the first place.
It is far better to go into battle with a small army of true believers than a large crowd of wishy-washy mamby-pambys who are not committed to the cause. Black people continue to pay a tremendous price in blood and treasure to this country despite having slaved and died for over four hundred years without having received a single penny of compensation.
The agonizing murders and mutilations, rapes and assaults on black bodies by white slavers cannot be ignored or forgotten. But it did not end there, The chain-gangs, Jim Crow, the prison Industrial complex and the unchecked murderous police assaults on people of color remain and continue day by day. Despite these more well-documented instances of incomprehensible barbarism whites have visited on blacks, there are the much more nuanced examples of mental retardation which are not so well know.
These incidences, for example, include a black Chicago man who was shot and injured in the early 1960’s on a hunting trip. His friends took him from hospital to hospital to save his life at every hospital they were turned away. Turned away, because of the color of his skin, he bled out and died.
Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr murdered by police in his own home because he was allegedly playing his music too loud. A lawyer for the family said he was left scratching his head at the pointedly paltry settlement award.
We have to reconcile these instances of egregious inhumanity with a Florida jury which awarded four cents to the family of a black man murdered by police in his own garage behind a closing garage door. The calculated disrespect inherent in that verdict cannot be ignored and must be viewed fully for what it is. Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr was killed by police who showed up to his house because he was allegedly playing his music too loud. Hill who was in his garage having a drink in the early afternoon attempted to close his garage door, not before the responding cops fired multiple rounds into his body killing him.
We all knew they were not going to be held accountable, that’s a given. The mind-numbing discussion surrounding this killing has as its focal point the idea that cops ought not to be called for trivial issues as a noise complaint in the middle of the afternoon, rather than that police officer who are supposed to be guardians of our safety, should not be the ones executing us. Racism will continue until those who benefit from it are held accountable for it. Those who benefit from it will not change it, so as Martin Luther King asserted, blacks should never be lulled into the acceptance of gradual change, (King called it the tranquil drug of gradualism). If this cancer is going to be fixed it must be identified, confronted, isolated and cauterized.
I recently wrote two articles in which I sought to highlight the grave injustice being done to the rule of law and the system of justice in Jamaica by the Delroy Chuck justice ministry. The Chuck Justice ministry under the guise of freeing up court dockets has engaged in two counterproductive practices which benefit murderers and other criminals and ignores the sensibilities of crime victims. (1) Sentence reduction day (2) expunging criminal records. Both practices help those who commit crimes even as the country is swamped with violent crimes and inundated in lesser crimes the lion’s share of which the system cannot even bother to prosecute.
The hyper-partisans faux patriots were quick to pounce stupidly labeling me with every pejorative in their vocabulary. They never bothered, or were able to debate the pros and cons of my arguments so they resorted to ad hominem attacks. In fact, some of my friends argued that I simply had not done the necessary research or I would have seen that as it related to turning criminals back onto the streets it was confined only to people who were caught with a ganja spliff.
For the record, I make no distinction between expunging criminal records[a] (unless the person’s record being sanitized has stayed out of trouble for at least 20-years) and [b] reducing the sentence of murderers simply because they make a guilty plea as is administered in this cavalier and cynical way.
Though this does not cause any outrage in Jamaica, the case of murder against Christopher Johnson in a Kingston courtroom should elicit howls of condemnation from well-intentioned people everywhere. Johnson was charged with the murder of Elaine Lawrence whom he fatally shot in the face as she tried to defend her daughter. The trial judge Vivienne Harris flippantly offered the murdering monster the option to decide whether he wanted to plead guilty to non-capital murder and serve a 10-year prison sentence or be convicted and having to do 20 years.
This writer has long advocated for mandatory minimum sentences for murder and other violent crimes. Last year alone Jamaican police reported that there were 1616 murders reported to them. This figure does not cover other shootings in which the victims were not killed or may have died days or weeks later. Given these facts, the conventional wisdom would suggest a strengthening of the Island’s laws instead of making these reckless concessions to murderers.
The callous lack of deference that this process represents to those murdered and their families is remarkable considering that in other jurisdictions family members of murdered victims are given tremendous respect and deference in the criminal justice system. As I stated in the first article above, embarking on a willy-nilly process of half off justice is in and of itself prejudicial and injurious to the process of justice because it creates the unintended prospect of encouraging more murders and the practices which clogged the courts’ dockets in the first place.
Christopher Johnson pulled a gun from his waistband and shot Elaine Lawrence in the face twice merely for standing up to him in defense of her daughter. Johnson’s Lawyer told the court that the daughter of the slain woman said “things” to his client. “She was dissin’ [disrespecting] him and dissin’ him big time.” A shocking admission of guilt which is not a plausible criminal defense but an egregious justification for a cowardly and dastardly act by a common murdering punk. Even though this accused have spent four years in prison a 14-year prison sentence for capital murder ought not to be an acceptable sentence for that level of barbarism.
Black America served as a well-lubricated conduit for 1.1−2 trillion dollars last year, most of which went to businesses in other communities. If African-Americans ever want to be respected in their own country, they better plug this dike.
Two black men were arrested for simply sitting in a coffee shop.
The tragic turn race relations have taken from Donald Trump’s ascendency to the presidency will have devastating and lasting consequences, not just for people of color in America but across the Globe. Put, the rise of fascism is consequential whether to America’s policy, in the West Bank, the outdoor prison camp maintained by Israel called Gaza, the Korean peninsula, or as it relates to immigrants fleeing persecution and death from Latin America. As such, it requires vigilance and a state of wokeness[sic] on the part of all people of color regardless of where we are domiciled.
Racist and Xenophobic immigration policy affects the free movement of people across international borders on the one hand, even as they inform misguided deportation policies not rooted in justice, fairness, or the rule of law but are demonstrably rooted in race and skin pigmentation. In a country as powerful and consequential as the United States, a country which has held itself out as the tip of the spear of democratic governance, this new American direction has given the entire world a tremendous whiplash.
Back in the United States, the debate rages as more and more people of color, largely African-Americans, are being forced to recognize, if not accept, that the election of Barack Obama did not mean that America was ready to move past its endemic shame of racism. Whether it is police murderous assault on black people or those who weaponize the police inexorably into the military wing of white supremacy, the evidence is undeniable.
As the assaults on decency pile up, from the White House to the lowest rung of white supremacy in the bowels of Dixie, Black America’s continuance of a failed policy of assimilation since the passage of the civil rights act of 1964 seem to be the path of choice even today. ♦The idea of sitting at white lunch counters to force change is inherently moral. Yet, I would rather be embarking on a plan of starting my own Diner. I do not relish the taste of spit in my food. Why are Black Americans begging to be accepted into coffee shops and waffle houses? How difficult is it to open their own coffee shops and waffle houses?
♦ The idea of getting people who hate my guts for no reason other than their envy of my beautiful black skin, to allow me to spend my beautiful green dollars in their restaurants, hotels, country clubs, and other businesses, does not have real appeal for me. I much rather believe in starting my own hole in the wall eatery. AirB&B has demonstrated that we don’t have to use their hotels either. In fact, Harriet Tubman proved long ago that people could be moved over hundreds of miles safely and effectively if we chose to use our craniums.
Counter demonstrators holding a banner decrying white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., in August. 2017
Black buying power currently stands at over $1.1 trillion and is on the road to hit about $1.5 trillion by 2021. This collective buying power means that nearly $2 trillion will be flowing through black America annually very soon, making us the centerpiece for various researchers, marketers, advertisers, and other campaigns designed to influence black spending patterns. But the question is, with so much buying power, can we as African Americans influence and direct said spending ourselves? Do we have the power directly, indirectly, and strategically to determine where that money flows and if so, could directing that flow help rebuild the black community?
Within the next 45 years, by around 2060, black America might be represented by 75 million in the U.S., holding about 20% of the U.S. population. In terms of black-owned businesses, that number sits anywhere from 2.5 million to 3 million enterprises and is projected to grow in larger numbers in the future.
All of this data points to the trend that African Americans will be significant contributors to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and U.S. jobs’ creation and sustainability. However, African-Americans’ challenge is not that some people in our community do not recognize the need to create more startups.[BE]
‘Everyday Racism in America’: A racial reckoning must happen, leaders say.
The challenge lies in black support for those startups, and the attendant support required to survive. Some claims have been that a dollar lasts no longer than one to six hours before leaving our community. So to borrow a term, the African-American community remains merely a well-lubricated conduit for money to be dispersed to other communities.
There is much to be discussed in terms of how we move a community of 13.5% of 320 million people to understand the power of their money. There is hardly a legitimate argument to be made that there aren’t adequate amounts of money passing through black people’s hands. One billion dollars dispersed among forty million people translates to roughly 27.5 thousand per person spending per annum. Hardly any of that money is being spent with black enterprises or small businesses. If Black Americans do not want to be talking about this very issue of racism and exclusion across the economic and geographical spectrum a hundred years from now, this hole in the dike must be plugged.
One of the tools law enforcement uses to identify and confirm the criminal behavior of individuals is their criminal record. It makes it easier to determine who committed what crime, it gives law enforcement a heads up on what they are dealing with- with criminal profiling and allows courts to make better decisions when dealing with repeat offenders. The idea that Jamaica would be expunging the records of dangerous criminals when the world is moving in the direction of tightening the noose on their own criminals and criminal empires is a tragedy which will have devastating unforeseen consequences.
Just as consequential will be the diminishment of Jamaica’s credibility in the eyes of International partners, as it relates to the veracity of the background information on Jamaicans wishing to travel, work and live overseas. More and more we are living in an interconnected world in which unitary standards are the rule rather than the exception. For that reason, embarking on a systematic program of sanitizing the criminal records of thousands of criminals is destructively counterproductive.
Delroy Chuck
Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck revealed to the nation’s parliament that more than 1,000 criminal records were expunged last year. In actuality, the number revealed was 1,027 for the single year 2017. At a time when murders, rapes, shootings and other violent crimes continue to escalate in Jamaica, it is astounding that the Government would embark on a process which would make it exponentially more difficult for law enforcement and the courts to do their jobs.
Given where Jamaica is in its enforcement efforts, it is unconscionable and inexplicable that the administration would embark on this reckless path. There is no justification for this process, any rewards which may be extrapolated clearly cannot justify the risks.
One of the benchmarks for the easy movement of people across international borders is individual country’s ability and integrity to determine the true background of their citizens. The same benchmark determines whether a state is characterized as a failed state or not when they are unable to credibly say who is who.
Fudging around with the records of criminals tells our international partners that when we say someone has a clean record we are saying that the government has tampered with the record of the individual which has nothing to do with the character of that individual. That is the path to becoming a failed state.
It would be interesting to hear the administration and more specifically the Minister of justice explain the benefits to the country in light of the foregone. I will not hold my breath for this explanation as it appears that Delroy Chuck is running a parallel government out of the justice ministry, which just happens to be dedicated to the empowerment of Jamaica’s criminal underworld.
The legacy of their collective cowardice and bigotry will forever be embedded in history for posterity.
The NFL is a league which is made up of over 70% black men, yet today the NFL codified into its rules, bigotry and the suppression of its member’s 1st amendment rights, even though those rights are inherently guaranteed in the constitution of the United States.
First amendment to the US Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Every company or business have a right to establish a code of ethics for its employees yet those ethical codes cannot supersede the constitutional guarantees established under the Constitution of the United States. Yet that is exactly what the all-white NFL billionaire owners decreed, essentially reducing over 1200 African-American men to nothing more than mute black bodies to be exploited for financial gain.
In a disgraceful act of cowardice, NFL owners with the abstention of the owner of the San-Francisco 49ers and without any representation from the players union , decided that teams may choose to remain off the field while the national anthem is being played. However, if teams and or players are on the field when they anthem is being played and they take a knee the team will be fined $15’000. To his credit, the owner of the New York Jets has said he will assume payment of the fine if his players decide to take a knee or assume any other form of protest.
Trump is the hate which the Republican hate machine created.
In a shocking capitulation to Donald Trump’s bigotry wrapped in a flimsy yet transparent veneer of faux patriotism, this bunch of NFL owners will be recorded in history as the despicable bunch of racist inconsequential bums that they truly are. Whether it is bottom-line or these billionaires are simply rich slimebuckets is inconsequential. The legacy of their collective cowardice and bigotry will forever be embedded in history for posterity.
Each and every one of those black NFL players has white teammates, white agents, white friends, some have white wives, white girlfriends, they move in circles of white associates. Where are those white friends now? Colin Kaepernick took a knee to highlight the rampant, egregious and murderous assault on black men, black women, black children by police who are paid by their tax dollars to protect them.
Kaepernick
Since Kaepernick’s initial protests, hundreds of black people have been murdered and seriously maimed by race soldiers, the military wing of white supremacy who commit these atrocities under the cover of law. I have long maintained that it’ is lunacy to appeal to the better angels of your oppressor to turn around and be decent human beings. The challenge for Black people, not just in America but everywhere across the globe in which they encounter racist whites is to understand whats going on and to divorce themselves from the misguided notion that a Leopard will change its spot.
Well over a year ago I took the decision never to watch another NFL game ever again, as long as Colin Kaepernick was not reinstated. It was enough for me that the league would try to suppress the voice of an employee because he dared to speak out against bigotry which is demonstrably murdering innocent people.
I did not need to see it codified into rules to make that decision. I did not watch one minute of even one game last season. For me, the NFL has long been dead. The lie that viewership went down because white people are mad at the actions of Kaepernick and others is part of the falsehoods and misinformation which has taken over our existence. Nevertheless, as I said last year, the actions of black people will not change any. Blacks will continue on watching and cheering as if nothing happened.
Cons. Deron M. Henry attached to the Motorised Patrol Division was fatally shot about 3:25 am this morning, at the Terra Nova Hotel Parking Lot in Kingston.
Constable Henry
Reports are that Cons. Henry who was on suspension was working as a Security Guard at the aforementioned hotel. The management saw a car parked on the premises and alerted Cons. Henry.
Constable Henry
Constable Henry went to investigate and was fired upon by armed men from inside the vehicle. He sustained a gunshot wound to the neck. The striken officer was assisted to the University Hospital, where he died while undergoing treatment.
The Independent Commission of Investigations was created in 2010 by the Bruce Golding Government with the blessings and acquiescence of the Portia Simpson Miller-led People’s National Party (PNP).
INDECOMACT An Act to make provision for the establishment of a Commission of Parliament to undertake investigations concerning actions by members of the Security Forces and others agents of the State that result in death or injury to persons or the abuse of the rights of persons. https://www.indecom.gov.jm/
Under the provisions of the act, the Agency has broad and sweeping powers not only to investigate but it has taken it onto itself to arrest perceived offending members of the JCF and has engaged in its own illicit[sic] prosecution of members of the Constabulary with the full acquiescence of the JLP Administration in Kingston. This, though the agency have been rebuffed in the Appellate courts as to its lack of authority to act as investigator, arresting officer and prosecutor, something unheard of in any other part of the world.
It is now eight years(8) since the INDECOM law has been in effect, over that time INDECOM has succeeded greatly in causing hard-working police officers to literally drop their hands out of fear of being caught up in the demagogic web of slander which has been unleashed against members of the force by narcissist Terrence Williams and foreigner Hamish Campbell, the Commissioner and chief deputy of INDECOM.
As a consequence, Crime has increased exponentially year over year, more rank and file police officers are leaving the department, even as the JCF is unable to meet recruitment targets, commissioners of police are changed and exchanged and the nation is no closer to a solution of ending the bloodletting.
It is because of the immense power and influence of INDECOM that the latest salvo of accusation by INDECOM directed at the (JCF) is so befuddling. Hamish Campbell, an assistant commissioner of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), declared that the repeated allegations of ‘planted firearms’ were beyond anecdotal.
Campbell, who was addressing a press conference at the commission’s head office yesterday, first gave examples of two instances where guns had been recovered from a fatal shooting. The weapons had already been submitted to the police laboratory in respect of a previous shooting, one as recent as this year.
“In those matters, there are witnesses who claimed an alleged ‘planting’, and the weapon seems to indicate some mishandling,” he said. He then disclosed that a recent investigation of a police shooting revealed that the firearm purported to have been found on the dead man was questionable because the same weapon was already recorded in police custody records as having been seized a month before.
Campbell also pointed out that the ballistic examination of a police MP5 weapon, held within a police armory, revealed that casings that matched that police weapon also matched casings found at the murder of two civilians from a previous time. He further disclosed that during a search of police premises, two weapons (revolvers) were found, which were recorded as being unaccounted for. A third weapon, which was found in a police drawer, had no record at all at the station.
The Police High command now under the leadership of a non-cop outsider was late in responding to these claims and only just yesterday managed a lack-luster predictable blah-blah.
“The JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) takes these allegations very seriously and would like the matter to be probed further. As a direct result, we have written to INDECOM asking them to provide us with the information regarding their public claims to facilitate further investigation. “The JCF is giving the public an undertaking that the matter will be thoroughly investigated and we will assist in bringing any member found in breach of the law to justice,” the high command said in a statement.
INDECOM has the power and resources to investigate and bring charges where warranted not to issue slanderous press releases without backing up those releases with tangible evidentiary facts. Additionally, even if INDECOM is in possession of this kind of evidence why is the assistant commissioner making statements about it when it has a responsibility to bring criminal charges where applicable?
In light of these developments, it must clearly be understood that even if INDECOM has evidence of what it alleges, the thing to do is to proceed with further investigations then submit its full findings to the Director of Public Prosecution for her action. Furthermore, it is abundantly clear that the idea behind these unsubstantiated allegations is to elicit maximum shock value and do immeasurable harm to the JCF at a time when crime continues to go down in St James even though not across the Island.
The leaders of INDECOM, Terrence Williams, and Hamish Campbell have never been content to work in the background, allowing their work to speak for them as real investigators are wont to do. Instead, Williams and Campbell have opted for the more high profile grandstanding method which really is about appearances with precious little substance once the smoke screen settles.
In fact, the Police own Inspectorate branch has yielded much more tangible results than INDECOM’s 8‑year effort has. It is about time that ordinary people in the country demand that the Police clean up its act and become more credible with its accounting but more so that the Government move to repeal the INDECOM act and replace it with a law which protects police and citizens alike, More importantly, whoever heads the agency should be guided by strict rules as to what they may divulge and what they may say in public. INDECOM from its inception has been a cancerous tumor on the body of the Jamaican security apparatus resulting in untold dead and a massive erosion of the rule of law. If the idea was to create a failed state, then the two political parties have been extremely successful in the creation of this anti-Jamaican Albatross which is now totally out of control.
This container fell from the back of a rig sometime yesterday on Princess street, downtown Kingston. There are reports that several people were injured in this incident.
Yesterday there was credible reporting in Jamaican media that attorney at law Patrick Bailey had turned himself in to the police for a second round of questioning. The case involved the 2016 killing of 51-year-old Germaine Junior at a home supposedly owned by Bailey. At the time of the murder of mister Junior Élan Powell Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of crime told the media that Bailey was not a suspect! Powell went on to insist that the police were hiding nothing and the investigations would be done and the chips would fall where they may. In February of 2016, Assistant commissioner Powell told a Gleaner Editor’s forum that the police did not wish to name the suspects in the case (an indication that he had a suspect in mind) but sought to assure that the police were actively pursuing the case.
This writer and former detective, found this case odd on several fronts. (1) How could the Police decisively rule out Mr Bailey as a suspect with such conviction, yet two years later are unable to disclose to the family of mister Junior on what grounds they arrived at their conclusions.
Given the police own accounting of the events surrounding mister Juniors death, I wrote the article below, questioning the veracity of the police story and their lack of action on what is not a difficult case.. The case was confined to a premises owned by a certain individual, who just happened to be at the premises at the time of the demise of mister Junior. There was no evidence that the deceased was killed and brought to the premises so there was no reason to look anywhere else on the planet , the house was the murder scene.
The police reported that there was no forced entry and that Mister Bailey was on premises when mister Junior was stabbed multiple times and shot. Mister Bailey allegedly told police at the time that he was walking around his house when he stumbled upon the body about 4:30 am.
I decided to ask some questions in September of last year in light of the curious inaction by the police on a case which I thought only required some deductive reasoning to solve.So we asked some questions and demanded action for the family of mister Junior despite not knowing them. The police sometimes do not have the resources to get the job done but when they have a case in which it appears that all of the facts line up, it is unconscionable that the police would not do due diligence on behalf of the people who pay their salaries.
♦ Patrick Bailey is a prominent attorney who easily fits into the category of the proverbial big man according to Jamaican culture. ♦ Was mister Junior there as his guest, if not his, then whose? ♦ Who else lives in the home of attorney Patrick Bailey if anyone? ♦ Police reported that Bailey stumbled upon the body about 4:30 am in his own house as he was asleep despite the fact that mister Junior was allegedly shot. ♦ If the homicide happened in a section of the residence outside mister Bailey’s earshot, (assuming the residence is large enough that Bailey would not have heard a gunshot), nevertheless who gets up and walk around the house at 4:30 am?
♦ How could Bailey sleep through what must have been a struggle much less the sound of a gunshot in his house? ♦ The statement that he stumbled upon the body at 4:30 am could only have come from Bailey himself which gives it little credibility under the circumstances. ♦ A proper coroner’s inquest should nail down approximately what time was mister Junior killed as against Patrick Bailey’s assertions. ♦ The Police reported that there was no forced entry to Bailey’s house.This is absolutely critical evidence as it demonstrates that whoever killed mister Junior had access to the residence. ♦ A knife believed to be the one used to stab mister Junior was allegedly found beside his body, was it checked for fingerprints.
♦ If Mister Junior was living abroad at the time and was only visiting the Island why would the police and others allege that he was a caretaker of the residence? ♦ The fact that mister Junior’s body was found with multiple stab wounds suggest a crime of passion coupled with the fact that he was also shot. ♦ Was Patrick Bailey’s person checked for marks which would indicate whether he was involved in a struggle, or did the police simply take his word that he slept through a stabbing and a shooting? If not why was it not done? ♦ Why was Patrick Bailey ruled medically unfit to give statements to police at the time by Doctor Jeptah Ford? ♦ According to the Jamaica Observer reporting Following the incident, attorney Patrick Bailey’s doctor and client Jephthah Ford instructed that he be confined to bed after he reportedly exhibited signs of being unwell. Ford also said he was not fit to give a statement at the time.
♦ Why was Bailey given special privileges when even police officers traumatized by instances of fatal encounters are forced to give a quick accounting as to what occurred? ♦ Who else had access to the residence if anyone and what was their relationship to mister Junior? ♦ Did the police check Patrick Bailey’s house for bloody clothes or clothes recently washed? ♦ Did the Police check outhouses (if applicable) and garbage receptacles for potential bloody clothes? ♦ If the police determined there was no forced entry to Bailey’s house how could they summarily rule him out as a suspect?
Police investigators are at this hour interviewing prominent attorney Patrick Bailey in connection with the stabbing death of a man whose body was found inside his upper St Andrew home 20 months ago, law enforcement sources have revealed.
According to sources, Bailey turned himself in to the police this afternoon, accompanied by two top criminal defense attorneys, to give a second statement in relation to the September 30, 2016, death of Jermaine Junior, a 51-year-old construction worker.
Checkpoints continue to increase amidst rapacious land grab by Israelis. The resultant expansion of illegal settlements continue unabated and the world is deathly silent as the American Government moved it’s embassy to Jerusalem. Christians in America see this move by the Americans as Biblical in its proportion. Israelis see this move as something out of Biblical prophecy, even though they are neither Christians nor believe in the Bible. At the United Nations, US ambassador Nikki Haley shamelessly blames the victims for their own deaths.
In the meantime, the apartheid, Zionist state of Israel continue to thumb its nose at conventional norms as it’s soldiers indiscriminately slaughter dozens and dozens of unarmed Palestinian men women and children. No one is spared death by the Israeli snipers they shoot and kill journalists and even those in wheelchairs. It is a shocking display of genocide being visited upon an already oppressed people who have lost everything and have been living under the oppressive bootheels of Israel since 1948.
Netanyahu
Israel and the United States maintained that the people killed are Hamas functionaries who breached the fences to enter Israel. However independent reporting has shown that this is an unadulterated lie. In many cases, those who lose their lives are actually the victims of sniper fire while they are in the buffer zones away from the Fences. The fact that these protestors are killed by sniper fire is a stark indicator that these people are not killed scaling any fence but are slaughtered by the Zionist army simply for protesting.
Amidst the silent collusion of the rest of the world, the government of South Africa has withdrawn its ambassador to Israel. South Africa which suffered under vicious apartheid rule and which benefitted from the graciousness of conscientious people across the globe now feels it has a responsibility to stand up and call out Israeli for what it is doing to the people of Palestine.
It is shocking that any group of people regardless of their religious persuasion could assume that this genocide is somehow sanctioned by a sovereign deity. If this mass slaughter is God-sanctioned then this writer wants no part of that God. What kind of world are we living in when we are afraid, or at best unconcerned, about the indiscriminate killing of our fellow human beings?
Israeli citizens hold Israeli flags and banners during a rally in Tel Aviv on April 19, 2016, to support Elor Azria, an Israeli soldier recently charged with manslaughter after shooting a prone and wounded Palestinian assailant in the head. The rally, attended by an estimated 5,000 people, was a source of controversy in Israel where the top brass have condemned Azria’s actions while far-right supporters and politicians urged his release. /AFP PHOTO /JACK GUEZ
Have we become so immobilized by fear, of what may happen may be done to us if we speak out, and so as a consequence, we remain silent? How then do we expect to leave our world in a state in which our children may live as free human beings when we lack the courage to say enough?
How can we allow our fears to freeze us into immobility against fascism, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, sexism, and the other vices which would divide us into little-balkanized camps, and keep us hiding behind walls and fortifications? It is time for the world to hold the Zionist state of Israel accountable for its crimes against humanity. There cannot justifiably be two different set of rules Governing our social order, one for Israel and another for everyone else. This is unacceptable and it must stop.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr was born on the 17th of August 1887. Though Garvey was born in Jamaica he was best known for his Panafricanist movement in the United States which was met with stiff resistance from African-American leaders who condemned his methods. He was a leader of a mass movement called Pan-Africanism and he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).[2][3] He also founded the Black Star Line, a shipping and passenger line which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands.(Wikipedia)
Most of all Marcus Garvey advocated segregation from the white power structure which had kidnapped, raped, murdered, enslaved and otherwise visited and still perpetuated genocide on African peoples, advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa known as Garveyism.
Marcus Garvey
Garvey founded and operated the Black Star Liner a passenger shipping line which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands. Despite attracting huge followings Garvey who would later be recognized as Jamaica’s first National hero saw the demise of his shipping line which went into bankruptcy. Garvey was eventually convicted on trumped up mail fraud charges and eventually deported to Jamaica where he continued his work.
Garvey’s essential ideas about Africa were stated in an editorial in Negro World entitled “African Fundamentalism”,
On 8 July, Garvey delivered an address, entitled “The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots”, at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech, he declared the riot was “one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind”, condemning America’s claims to represent democracy when black people were victimized “for no other reason than they are black people seeking an industrial chance in a country that they have laboured for three hundred years to make great”. It is “a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy”.
NOW
Dr. King
Seventy-Eight (78) after the death of Marcus Garvey and fifty(50) years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr the civil rights leader who taught and advocated for a more peaceful non-violent pacifist form of protest, not a great deal has changed. Dr. King himself cautioned against what he called “the tranquil drug of gradualism” in response to the common refrain from liberal whites to let things evolve gradually. At the same time, King’s non-violent form of civil disobedience was largely born out of the idea that Blacks by virtue of their numerical strength could not have a military solution to their plight in America.
For Blacks who had not taken the option as others had to leave and resettle on the African Continent, the strategy was inexorably one of appealing to the better angels of the very people who had oppressed murdered, raped, enslaved and otherwise abused them for over four hundred years.
I risk being repetitive by stating that the very issues which plagued the Black community during the 60’s, segregation, racial biases, and abuse from police who sees itself as an institution, as defenders of the white power structure rather than protectors of all citizens are the same issues which plague the community today.
It is important to recognize that culturally, police departments treat black citizens differently than they do whites because they do not see black citizens as full citizens. Individual police officers and groups of officers may not even recognize the structural biases and disregard, inherent in their responses and behavior toward black Americans as opposed to how they respond to whites. In many cases, many white officers may otherwise be what one would call “decent people”, the differences in their approaches go to the depth of the implicit biases which are inherent in law enforcement in America.
When there is a juxtaposition of the massive infiltration of white supremacists in law enforcement over the years it demonstrates the level of danger people of color face in their interaction with law enforcement, even when they are the ones who happen to call the police. In 2017 the Intercept reported. “Federal law enforcement agencies in general — the FBI, the Marshals, the ATF — are aware that extremists have infiltrated state and local law enforcement agencies and that there are people in law enforcement agencies that may be sympathetic to these groups,” said Daryl Johnson, who was the lead researcher on the DHS report. Johnson, who now runs DT Analytics, a consulting firm that analyzes domestic extremism, says the problem has since gotten “a lot more troublesome.”
The unconscionable and despicable shooting deaths by police of mentally ill family members of black people who call them for help goes to the lack of respect police largely have for black lives. The continued reprehensible killing and abuse of black men and women even when they are unarmed and have committed no crimes, against the repeated cases of white mass killers being arrested without receiving a scratch from police demonstrates the dangerous bi-fold policing paths in America. Even in adverse situations where a potential arrestee decides to resist being arrested, the wrongness of how police behave in the mind of the subject cannot be ignored.
Today black Americans are profiled in Starbucks coffee shops, in Waffle houses, in restaurants, clothing stores, and other establishments. Well over half a century after lunch counter sit-ins, water hoses, having to pay at the front, then exit and go to the back of the bus to sit or stand, the conversations are the same.
And so I wonder whether the path of assimilation and integration taken in the 60’s has been a correct path for American blacks? What would have happened if Blacks had come together as they did during the Montgomery bus boycotts to start community banks, startup and support each other in businesses outside the traditional barbershops and hair salons? In Real Estate, charter schools, and businesses of all kinds would the response to blacks in America be the same had blacks opted for building their own institutions as earlier blacks did?
Black Americans built Institutions of higher learning, they build colleges and Universities which are monuments to black excellence, integrity, and intellect to this day. Black businesses have been victims of white wrath and hate and have been systematically destroyed under transparent pretexts of wrongdoing. On January 1, 1923, a massacre was carried out in the small, predominantly black town of Rosewood in Central Florida. The massacre was instigated by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sexually assaulted by a black man in her home in a nearby community. Read the story here: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/rosewood-massacre-1923
National guardsmen collected the injured
In 1921, Tulsa had the wealthiest black neighborhood in the country. On Sundays, women wore satin dresses and diamonds, while men wore silk shirts and gold chains. In Greenwood, writes historian James S. Hirsch,“Teachers lived in brick homes furnished with Louis XIV dining room sets, fine china, and Steinway pianos.” They called it Black Wall Street.
“They had done everything that they were supposed to do in terms of the American dream,” says Carol Anderson, Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. “You work hard, you save your money, you go to school, you buy property. And this is what they had done under horrific conditions.”
Greenwood was strictly segregated from the rest of the city, but still, it flourished. It was home to black lawyers, business owners, and doctors — including Dr. A.C. Jackson, who was considered the most skilled black surgeon in America and had a net worth of $100,000.
Dr. Jackson was killed on the night of May 31st, 1921, along with hundreds of black Tulsans. Thirty-five blocks of Greenwood were razed that night. 1,256 homes and 191 businesses were destroyed. 10,000 black people were left homeless. By morning, Black Wall Street had been reduced to rubble.
In 1890, a group of migrants fleeing the hostile South settled an all-black town called Langston, 80 miles west of Tulsa. Oklahoma wasn’t yet a state, and its racial dynamics weren’t set in stone. The architect of the settlement, Edwin McCabe, had a vision of Oklahoma as the black promised land. He sent recruiters to the South, preaching racial pride and self-sufficiency. At least 29 black separatist towns were established in Oklahoma during the late 19th century.
White homesteaders opposed to the “Africanization of Oklahoma” spearheaded a counter-movement, and the rural black settlements were all but wiped off the map. McCabe himself fled to Chicago in 1908. But black people were in Oklahoma for good, and they moved to the cities — taking that dream of empowerment with them. Tulsa experienced a massive oil boom in the 1900s, and black residents began making good money as cooks and domestic servants to the freewheeling white nouveau riche. They invested that money in their own neighborhood, and by 1920 Greenwood was the most vibrant and affluent black community in the United States.
White residents were disturbed by the growing black wealth in Greenwood and sought to impose official segregation measures. In 1914, the city passed a law that forbade anyone from living on a block where more than three-quarters of the preexisting residents were of another race. In isolation, Greenwood only thrived more. Its main strip boasted attorneys’ offices, auto shops, cafes, a movie theater, funeral homes, pool halls, beauty salons, grocery stores, furriers, and confectioneries. One entrepreneur built an elegant 54-room hotel, likely the largest ever owned by a black person in pre-Civil Rights America. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling in the banquet hall. Its owner, J.B. Stradford, had been born a slave.
That resentment in Tulsa was so intense,” says Carol Anderson, “it was just waiting for a spark in order to ignite it.” That spark was a sexual assault allegation against a black teenager named Dick Rowland. It’s not entirely clear what happened in the elevator of the Drexel Building on May 30, 1921, but one common narrative is that Rowland accidentally tripped against its operator, a white 17-year-old named Sarah Page, causing her to scream. A bystander who heard the scream called the police, and “like a game of telephone, the story became more inflammatory with each retelling, and spread rapidly,” writes Dexter Mullins.
When Rowland was captured, a few black World War I veterans from Greenwood armed themselves in front of the courthouse, prepared to prevent a lynching. They were justified in their fear — a man named Roy Belton had been lynched in Tulsa the year before, after his arrest. “The lynching of Roy Belton,” read Greenwood’s black newspaper The Tulsa Star in 1920, “explores the theory that a prisoner is safe on the top of the Court House from mob violence.”
In front of the courthouse where Dick Rowland was being kept, a group of white men approached the black men from Greenwood. “Nigger, what are you going to do with that pistol?” said one. “I’m going to use it if I need to,” the black man replied. The white man attempted to wrest the pistol from his hands, and a gunshot rang out. It’s unclear whether it was accidental, a warning shot, or an attempt to injure or kill. In any case, all hell broke loose.
The groups of white and black men had a running gunfight all the way to Greenwood. When they got there, the group of whites — which had grown in number — began firing indiscriminately on black bystanders. Black people were shot in the streets and dragged behind cars with nooses tied around their necks. Their houses and businesses were looted and burned down. Greenwood residents fired back, and there were white casualties as well. Ultimately, the white mob was larger and better armed. Read the full story here: https://timeline.com/history-tulsa-race-massacre-a92bb2356a69
Did Black America lose it’s appetite to startup and own businesses? How many Black Americans today knew about these two examples I outlined here or the countless other instances of white genocide against blacks who decided to create wealth for themselves? The fact is, not many. So the refusal by blacks to startup and own their own businesses is not rooted in knowledge of what occurred neither should black Americans be afraid or intimidated. The fate of each and every one of us rests not with the generosity or benevolence of others, [least of all those who hate us] but in the accumulation of wealth and the subsequent empowerment of us as a people.
There is a reason that they chose to burn those businesses and kill the people who dared to defy conventional wisdom by creating their own engines of empowerment. Despite their ignorance, those imbeciles who burned those black businesses were at least intelligent enough to understand the importance of wealth creation as a vehicle to real and sustainable power.
There is an enduring truth which exists in the universe, it is that out of the worst tragedy there are still good possibilities. The conditions which are the most violent and dangerous creates the lushest, green foliages. (See the areas closest to active volcanoes).
If Black America spends its energies and it’s 1.3 ‑1.5 trillion dollars of spending money each year enriching others. A hundred years from now they will be talking about how they are treated in coffee shops or what obtains in place of coffee shops then. Why are we having a conversation about waffle houses? What does it take to do startups of waffle houses? At the risk of being overly simplistic, serving waffles, eggs, bacon, coffee and some orange juice is not exactly rocket science. How about some black people put themselves at the business end of the cash registers?
As long as we continue to be cash cows to the very people who loathe us we will perpetually be the punching bag for others. There is no power without economic power. Those opposed to our existence knows it, they are opposed to it because were we to break through their stranglehold they know they have no more control over us. Think about it for awhile!
A true Jamaican patriot lost his life doing what he loved, flying a plane in the skies of Jamaica: The late Rojorn Campbell was like family to me, a nephew and a member of my immediate family from birth. I knew him from birth when his parents were living at Eltham Park, Spanish Town, St. Catherine and I was living on the other side of the housing scheme.
His mother (Fredricka Campbell) and I grew up in the same home when I was going to high school in Jamaica, with her mother the late Mrs. Pearl Antonio, two brothers, one sister, and nieces. You could not tell that I am not related to them by blood. They treated me with unconditional love, respect, and most of all like family.
Rajon and I having a light
Little did I know that on September 2, 2014, at about 3:00 PM was the last time I would see Rojorn Campbell alive. My heart is heavy, sad, and I feel so empty inside knowing that I will not see him again in the flesh. A lot of Jamaicans love to call ourselves patriots, but we do not know or understand and practice being a “Jamaican-Patriot!” The late Rojorn Campbell was a true Jamaican-Patriot who loves, supported, and defended his country and its interests with devotion. He regarded himself as a defender, especially of sovereign rights, against presumed interference by outsiders of Jamaica.
The last time we met we had a great time just catching up
Normally, I do not write about others who have departed this earth, but I must do so as a family of the Campbell’s and Antonio’s family because I can empathize with them in some ways but not fully because he was not my son. Parents, siblings, spouse, child(ren) loss pain is different from others. All I can say is that I am so proud of him and the lives he has touched on this earth and there is a good saying that “good people” die young because God does not want them to get infected by the corruptors! In the photographs of Rojorn and me sitting in my living room talking for hours about what is next move should or going to be for the future was a very interesting time in his life.
He shared all his accomplishment and lifelong dreams of becoming a pilot and got his certification to soar the skies. During our conversation, I tried to convince him not to go back to Jamaica, I gave him several reasons why he should remain in the United States of America and join the “Air Force,” and his life would be much better than going back to Jamaica.
He was extremely fixated on going back to Jamaica the mother of his child and his little daughter whom he called “Kiki.” Nothing that I said to him touched a cord in the brain to reconsider my suggestions or matter what I was saying because it didn’t matter to him, Jamaica is where his heart was. Rojorn wanted to go back to Jamaica where his heart was. He thought going back to his homeland would enable him to contribute to his country where he has gotten his first taste of education. He wanted to give back to Jamaica and motivate others to inspire others to dream big like himself. To be frank, I wish that he had listened to me, but destiny and faith would fulfill his plans of soaring in the skies of Jamaica.
Last week when I heard that he died, a piece of me died, knowing that he was a part of me from birth, watching him become his own man and a father and subsequently a husband. I never met or knew his wife, but I know that the pain must be insurmountable, throbbing, aching, and in despair as a young woman to lose her husband less than three weeks after they’d tied the knot. On my cell phone, we have a group chat called “Positive Thinkers!” Most of the members are former members of the Jamaican Constabulary Force, Members of various United States police departments, Jamaican/Americans who were in the military and are serving in law enforcement here and even a neurologist, Rojorn Campbell was a part of this group from its inception. Since his death, I haven’t mustered the energy, strength, or forte to share with its members that he is no longer with us.
Even his father Everton Campbell is a member of our group, that’s how close they were to each other that they would be sharing their thoughts at times. Our group discusses various issues which affect us as people worldwide, especially crimes in Jamaica and the solutions to the problems there. Rojorn reminded me that he was in-love with Jamaica (A patriot) and at one time of my life, that was the way I felt too. He reminded me that I went to the Jamaica Police Academy at a tender age as a police cadet and when I graduated, I was the youngest police officer in my batch.
My sincere condolences to his family: Mother Fredricka Campbell “Ricka, Freddy and father Everton Campbell “Ever” who has imparted so many traits and life lessons that there is no space to write them. Joel Douglas, coach, his big brother his little brother Jordan Campbell and only sister whom he always boasts about being the superstar in the family Deja Campbell, they were is everything and if they’re hurting the feeling would be the same for him. Kiki, his little daughter, was his world, pride, and joy; he loves her world without end and would give his life for her.
She is the main reason why he wanted to go back to Jamaica; he did not want her to grow up in America because of the cultural shift from decency, God, and blatant lying especially from a Blackman: Barrack Obama. His uncles: Lambert, Timothy, and Calvin Antonio and his aunt Vendolyn Antonio and cousins…the Campbell’s clan that the father is from and their pain is overwhelming. None of us can empathize or understand what his family is going through at this time. But I do know a friend, who is a former member of the Jamaican Constabulary Force: Detective Corporal Mike Beckles who’ve loss his son under tragic circumstances and he can give some pointers to the family how to cope with their loss!
The late Rojorn Campbell was a true Jamaican patriot, and he has given his life serving his country in a capacity as a pilot and something that he loved. I know that the memories of him will forever etch in our brains and nothing can erase it. He was giant in his own right, all will truly miss him. Keep soaring the skies Rojorn and keep your eyes down on us here on the ground.
The3 Police are fighting a losing battle each year as it relates to crime. Regardless of the number of guns they remove from the streets. the evidence points to a far greater amount of weapons and ammunition in the hands of criminals.
It is clear that the way the security forces are responding to this fight must be re-evaluated then. The strategy it seems would be better directed at preventing the guns from coming into the country in the first place.
This weapon was recovered yesterday.
This submachine gun with (24) 9mm rounds and two magazines were recovered by the police at a place called Rocky hole Frome, in the Parish of Westmoreland early yesterday morning May, 8th 2018.
Benjamin Netanyahu says African Refugees are destroying the fabric of the Zionist state.
The choice for these migrants the choice is a few dollars and a ticket out, or jail. The Israeli Government has also built a wall between itself and Egypt with a view to keeping refugees out.
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People discuss racism in the abstract as if its a new strain of deadly virus for which there is no antidote. In an effort not to offend sensibilities we tiptoe around this insidious and deadly scourge without discussing the most important aspect of racism which is the critical issue of attribution.
I recently wrote two articles in which I sought to highlight the grave injustice being done to the rule of law and the system of justice in Jamaica by the Delroy Chuck justice ministry.
