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WhiskeyGrinder

WhiskeyGrinder's Journal
WhiskeyGrinder's Journal
March 22, 2018

When Black Voters Exited Left: What African Americans lost by aligning with the Democratic Party

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/exit-left/476190/

Democratic lawmakers drafted civil-rights legislation that would challenge Jim Crow laws in the South while leaving de facto segregation in the North intact. When NBC News asked the civil-rights organizer Bayard Rustin why many African American communities rioted the summer after the bill passed, he said, “People have to understand that although the civil-rights bill was good and something for which I worked arduously, there was nothing in it that had any effect whatsoever on the three major problems Negroes face in the North: housing, jobs, and integrated schools…the civil-rights bill, because of this failure, has caused an even deeper frustration in the North.” Today’s protest movements against second-class citizenship in Baltimore, Ferguson, Oakland, and elsewhere are in part a legacy of the unresolved failures of civil-rights legislation.

Unfortunately for black voters, most white politicians and voters assume that the civil-rights revolution not only leveled the playing field, but also tilted it in favor of African Americans. The white backlash to civil rights helped resurrect the Republican Party after the disastrous Goldwater campaign in 1964, and, over the last five decades, the Democratic Party has followed the electorate to the right.

This poses the biggest problem for black voters today, which is that Democrats running for state or national office aspire to win black votes without appearing to be beholden to black voters. This is especially true of the three Democratic presidents since Kennedy and Johnson. Black support was crucial to the elections of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (each received over 80 percent of black votes), but both distanced themselves from policies that might seem to disproportionately help black people. Urban League Director Vernon Jordan outlined his concerns a year into Carter’s presidency: “We have no full employment policy. We have no welfare reform policy. We have no national health policy. We have no urban revitalization policy. We have no aggressive affirmative action policy. We have no solutions to the grinding problems of poverty and discrimination.”


Hard to excerpt because it's all good.
March 20, 2018

Mpls police officer Noor turns himself in on murder, manslaughter charges in Justine Damond killing

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-police-officer-mohamed-noor-turns-himself-in-on-charges-in-justine-damond-killing/477405923/

Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor has been charged with murder and manslaughter charges in the July shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond.

Noor is charged with third degree murder “perpetrating eminently dangerous act and evincing depraved mind” and second-degree manslaughter, “culpable negligence creating unreasonable risk.”

County attorney Mike Freeman announced a 2:30 p.m. news conference Tuesday to discuss the case, which drew international attention and led to the ouster of former police chief Janeé Harteau. Noor was booked into Hennepin County jail at 11:16 a.m., according to jail records, on a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension warrant for third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Bail was set at $500,000.

Damond, 40, a native of Australia, was shot and killed July 15 after calling police to report a possible assault behind her south Minneapolis home. Noor was in the passenger seat and fired across his partner, Matthew Harrity, killing Damond. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said he would decide whether to charge Noor in Damond’s death, but convened a grand jury to gather additional evidence. A spokesman for Freeman declined to comment, as did Noor’s attorney Thomas Plunkett.
March 19, 2018

Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html

Black boys raised in America, even in the wealthiest families and living in some of the most well-to-do neighborhoods, still earn less in adulthood than white boys with similar backgrounds, according to a sweeping new study that traced the lives of millions of children.

White boys who grow up rich are likely to remain that way. Black boys raised at the top, however, are more likely to become poor than to stay wealthy in their own adult households.

Even when children grow up next to each other with parents who earn similar incomes, black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of America. And the gaps only worsen in the kind of neighborhoods that promise low poverty and good schools.

According to the study, led by researchers at Stanford, Harvard and the Census Bureau, income inequality between blacks and whites is driven entirely by what is happening among these boys and the men they become. Though black girls and women face deep inequality on many measures, black and white girls from families with comparable earnings attain similar individual incomes as adults.


Devastating and breathtaking. Also some fantastic data visualization at the link.

March 9, 2018

U.S. deports paraplegic boy's stepfather, caregiver

CINCINNATI — After more than three months of legal calisthenics, a suburban Cincinnati man who had been one of two caregivers for a 6-year-old paraplegic boy was deported earlier this week to his native Dominican Republic.

Yancarlos Mendez, 27, of Springdale, Ohio, was moved from the Jena/LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, La., and flown Tuesday to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic about 1,700 miles southeast of his U.S. home. He had been held for three weeks in Louisiana after his transfer from another federal holding center in Mount Gilead, Ohio, north of Columbus.

"We are sad, but unfortunately we cannot do anything else," said his wife, Sandra Mendoza.

Mendoza said Wednesday she has not told her son, Ricky Solis, that his stepfather is now out of the country.
March 3, 2018

When a woman or person of color becomes CEO, white men have a strange reaction

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-a-woman-or-person-of-color-becomes-ceo-white-men-have-a-strange-reaction-2018-02-23

When Barbara Krumsiek took over as chief executive of a socially responsible investment firm 20 years ago, she came in armed with a “game plan.”

(snip)

But despite her efforts, Krumsiek wasn’t able to convince everyone to buy into her leadership, at least initially. Some of her direct reports reacted enthusiastically to her appointment, some appeared outwardly positive, but maintained some skepticism, and some were just altogether unsatisfied.

(snip)

New research adds some context to Krumsiek’s experience. When companies appoint a woman or person of color as CEO, white men, on average, don’t appear to react very well, according to a study set to be published in the Academy of Management Journal’s April issue. Instead, the examination of 1,000 executives working at large and mid-sized public companies found that top white male leaders tended to become less helpful to other workers — particularly women and people of color — after the appointment of a minority-status CEO.

“They actually identify less, psychologically, with the organization after the appointment of a minority CEO and that reduces their propensity to help their colleagues,” said James Westphal, a finance professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and one of the authors of the study. “Our theory is that the appointment of minority CEOs triggers biases.”


I guess I wouldn't call it "strange" -- some of us have been witnessing it our whole lives.
February 20, 2018

Study: American Indian women in Mpls. disproportionately drawing police attention

http://www.startribune.com/study-native-women-in-minneapolis-disproportionately-targeted-in-police-stops/474512523/

American Indian women in Minneapolis were stopped, searched and arrested at higher rates last year than any other demographic group, including black men, according to a new study from St. Catherine University.

And while, citywide, a majority of police stops were for traffic violations, American Indians were mostly stopped on the basis of being "suspicious persons," the report found.

"It definitely is going to have an impact on people's lives, when we think about family stability, income," Marina Gorsuch, an economics and political science professor at St. Kate's, said of the study's implications. "So even though we can't say why they're happening, this is a clear alarm bell of saying that this is happening."

The study's authors — Gorsuch, economics Prof. Deborah Rho, and student researcher Nicole Busker, senior economics and business administration major — said the disparities were the result of "a complicated interplay of underlying factors" and didn't necessarily indicate racial bias on the part of police.
February 16, 2018

Source of Garrison Keillor allegations shocks those close to radio host

http://startribune.com/source-of-garrison-keillor-allegations-shocks-those-close-to-radio-host/474250133/

The person who first accused Garrison Keillor of inappropriate behavior wasn't a woman — it was an angry man.

Dan Rowles, a close associate of Keillor's and a 16-year employee of "A Prairie Home Companion," spoke up after he was dumped from the show last summer and rejected a severance offer from Minnesota Public Radio, according to seven people who have worked on the show.

Rowles' disclosure triggered internal and external investigations by MPR that concluded Keillor had engaged in "dozens of sexually inappropriate incidents … over a period of years," including "unwanted sexual touching," according to MPR. All of the alleged misconduct involved a longtime female writer for the show.

Some staff members now accuse Rowles of exploiting that writer's pain in an effort to obtain a larger financial package. They note that the woman did not come forward with her own account until two months after Rowles told MPR officials of Keillor's alleged misconduct.
February 14, 2018

Wellstone Action campaign group pushing out senator's sons

Source: Star Tribune

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A liberal campaign organization dedicated to the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone is pushing out the senator's two sons over differences in how the organization should run.

Wellstone Action informed David and Mark Wellstone on Wednesday that they would be voted off the governing board in the coming days, following what group leaders described as months of friction. They said the Wellstones have pushed repeatedly to shift focus from training progressive candidates and campaigns to more aggressive issue advocacy following Donald Trump's election as president.

David Wellstone did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on his ouster. A working phone listing could not be found for Mark Wellstone.

Co-founder and board member Jeff Blodgett, who was Paul Wellstone's campaign manager, told The Associated Press the "necessary but sad step" of removing the brothers from the board comes after months of tension. He said the brothers have asked that the group no longer use the family name.

Read more: http://www.startribune.com/apnewsbreak-wellstone-action-pushing-out-senator-s-sons/474067603/



The board's official statement can be found here:

https://www.wellstone.org/wellstone-action-official-board-statement-2018
February 14, 2018

Wellstone Action campaign group pushing out senator's sons

http://www.startribune.com/apnewsbreak-wellstone-action-pushing-out-senator-s-sons/474067603/


ST. PAUL, Minn. — A liberal campaign organization dedicated to the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone is pushing out the senator's two sons over differences in how the organization should run.

Wellstone Action informed David and Mark Wellstone on Wednesday that they would be voted off the governing board in the coming days, following what group leaders described as months of friction. They said the Wellstones have pushed repeatedly to shift focus from training progressive candidates and campaigns to more aggressive issue advocacy following Donald Trump's election as president.

David Wellstone did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on his ouster. A working phone listing could not be found for Mark Wellstone.

Co-founder and board member Jeff Blodgett, who was Paul Wellstone's campaign manager, told The Associated Press the "necessary but sad step" of removing the brothers from the board comes after months of tension. He said the brothers have asked that the group no longer use the family name.

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