He teaches incarcerated kids to honor his mom who was denied education. Now, he's National Teacher of the Year.
By Michelle Lou and Saeed Ahmed, CNN
Updated 8:32 AM ET, Fri April 26, 2019

(CNN)Rodney Robinson's mom grew up during segregation and wasn't able to graduate from high school due to poverty. Still, she taught him to value learning.

He took it to heart, becoming a teacher in order to honor her.

Robinson, who teaches at Virgie Binford Education Center, a school inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center in Virginia, was just named the National Teacher of the Year by the Council of Chief State School Officers.

"He creates a positive school culture by empowering his students -- many of whom have experienced trauma -- to become civically minded social advocates who use their skills and voices to affect physical and policy changes at their school and in their communities," the council said in a statement.

The honoree is selected from 50 state teachers of the year from the states, plus the Department of Defense Education Activity, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the US Virgin Islands and American Samoa.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/us/rodney-robinson-2019-teacher-of-the-year-trnd/index.html

It’s time for conservatives to decide what side of history they’re on

Jonathan Metzl is a professor of psychiatry and sociology at Vanderbilt University and the author of the new book “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland.”

Last Saturday, his presentation for the 2019 National Antiracist Book Festival at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington was disrupted by a group of about 10 white nationalists.

On the same day as a professed neo-Nazi apparently committed a lethal hate crime in a California synagogue, a group of his allies entered the bookstore, began chanting slogans and prevented Metzl from continuing his presentation, before finally leaving. This was a highly choreographed publicity stunt that offers one more example of how emboldened and encouraged neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other elements of the militant right feel, thanks to Donald Trump’s white identity movement.

I recently spoke with Metzl about what occurred on Saturday, his thoughts on being Jewish in the age of Trump and a moment of resurgent white supremacy, as well as the moral crisis that faces Republicans and other conservatives who continue to support a president who gives aid and comfort to some of the most dangerous and destructive elements in American society.

Metzl also shared his views that white Americans must fashion a new vision of whiteness if the United States is to survive and triumphant over Trump’s anti-democratic authoritarian movement.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/professor-whose-book-reading-was-invaded-by-neo-nazis-its-time-for-conservatives-to-decide-what-side-of-history-theyre-on/

We found 85,000 cops who’ve been investigated for misconduct. Now you can read their records.
USA TODAY is leading a national effort to obtain and publish disciplinary and misconduct records for thousands of police officers.

John Kelly and Mark Nichols, USA TODAY
Updated 35 minutes ago

At least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the USA have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade, an investigation by USA TODAY Network found.

Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.

Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.

The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.

Reporters from USA TODAY, its 100-plus affiliated newsrooms and the nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago have spent more than a year creating the biggest collection of police misconduct records.

Obtained from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors, police departments and sheriffs, the records detail at least 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of it previously unreported. The records obtained include more than 110,000 internal affairs investigations by hundreds of individual departments and more than 30,000 officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.

Among the findings:



https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/24/usa-today-revealing-misconduct-records-police-cops/3223984002/

Chicago, IL — Recently, Chicago’s top cop, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson—whose base salary is over a quarter of a million annually—told the Chicago Sun Times in an interview that cops “look the other way” all the time when it comes to witnessing misconduct within their ranks. While readers of the Free Thought Project likely know about this blue code of silence within departments, for the superintendent of one of the nation’s largest police forces to come out and admit this is noteworthy and utterly astonishing.

The system of US law enforcement is set up to protect itself which makes it nearly impossible for an individual whistleblower to prove wrongdoing. In case after case, TFTP reports incidents in which abuse, violence, and even murder has gone on inside police departments, is widely known inside the department, yet no one speaks up. Chicago is one of the worst departments in this regard.

Crossing the blue line often means career suicide and can also be dangerous. Previously, the Free Thought Project reported on the whistleblowers from the Chicago police department whose very lives were threatened for trying to expose the corruption in their department.

As Shannon Spalding, one of the whistleblowers from the CPD points out, this blue code of silence and punishment is already an unfortunate reality for most and the superintendent’s comments back her up.

“It’s no secret that if you go against the code of silence, and you report corruption, it will ruin your career,” Spalding said.

Spalding and her partner Daniel Echeverria uncovered a massive level of corruption in their department, leading to the arrest of other officers. However, being good cops got them threatened with “going home in a casket.”

This cycle of the “blue line” of protection can only persist for so long before there is no one left with enough courage to call out the corruption.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/chicago-police-superintendent-cops-code-silence/

New Haven, CT — Citizens of New Haven have been protesting every day since last Tuesday after police blocked in an innocent couple in their vehicle and opened fire on them for no reason. The entire incident was captured on video and showed the utter cowardice and ridiculous violence carried out by New Haven’s best.

Stephanie Washington, 22, was hospitalized last week after two trigger-happy cops opened fire on her and her boyfriend Paul Witherspoon, 21. According to police, Officer Devin Eaton and Yale police Officer Terrance Pollack were responding to reports of a robbery at a nearby gas station when they stopped the vehicle in which Washington was a passenger.

In only seconds, both officers jumped out of the vehicles and began shooting at this innocent couple. After they shot Washington, they realized the couple was unarmed and hadn’t done anything wrong.

Witherspoon’s uncle told reporters that there was an argument at the gas station, but no attempted robbery. His comments were backed up by the fact that no charges were filed against either of the vehicle’s occupants.

Hamden Mayor Curt Leng called the shooting “shocking, haunting.” And he’s right.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/innocent-couple-police-shoot/

Lynchburg, VA — On the night of February 17, 2018 Walker Sigler, his wife Kate, and their children were asleep in their home doing nothing wrong and harming no one when two Lynchburg police officers came to the door. As Sigler woke up to the noise, the officers opened fire through the closed door and shot Sigler. This innocent man’s leg was shattered and he was nearly murdered because two trigger happy cops were scared of their own shadows.

In June of last year, Officers Edward Ferron, 41, and Savannah Simmons, 22, were both indicted for their actions that night on three felony counts of reckless handling of a firearm resulting in serious bodily injury, unlawful wounding and unlawful shooting at an occupied domicile.

In March, they pleaded no contest to the charges and were “sentenced” for their crimes to 100 hours of community service — a travesty of justice indeed.

“This is an exceptionally difficult day, as you can imagine,” John E. Lichtenstein, Sigler’s attorney, said after the hearing. “It is difficult to understand these actions. But I think what we want you to know is the Siglers respect the process. They respect this process with what happened today. And he’s doing all they can to try to get better and to try to deal with it.”

As WSET reports, officers said they approached the home and announced that they were there to investigate suspicious activity. One of the officers attorney’s, Chuck Felmlee, said the officers then heard yelling and heavy foot steps as though someone was running toward them. They say it was Sigler who then slammed the door which made a loud clanging sound they believed to be a gun shot at the time. The officers fired four shots. One bullet hit Sigler and shattered his leg.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-shoot-dad-through-door