Thom shares the history of President Nixon’s War on Drugs and how it led up to the current state of violence between police and the African American community.
A police officer shot Philandro Castile four times after instructing him to pull out his ID during a traffic stop. His girlfriend filmed the aftermath with Facebook Live.
ABSOLUTELY! Jimmy, ABSOLUTELY!
Thom shares the points of an article about the facts surrounding the Alton Sterling shooting.
Thom speaks with Benjamin Dixon, host of the Benjamin Dixon Show, about the latest police shooting of an African-American man, North Carolina’s new ‘Blue Lives Matter’ law, and the court of public opinion.
Racists rejoice! With Donald Trump paving the way, bigots can now campaign to “Make American White Again” openly by appealing to a fictional American golden age where the damn minorities knew their place. Today’s example is Rick Tyler, candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district.
The way the Civil War became officially remembered — through Memorial Day celebrations— was based on the erasure of the Black veteran and the liberated slave.
A day celebrating Black liberation utilized for white supremacy
What we now know as Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. It was a tradition initiated by former slaves to celebrate emancipation and commemorate those who died for that cause.
These days, Memorial Day is arranged as a day “without politics”—a general patriotic celebration of all soldiers and veterans, regardless of the nature of the wars in which they participated. This is the opposite of how the day emerged, with explicitly partisan motivations, to celebrate those who fought for justice and liberation.
The concept that the population must “remember the sacrifice” of U.S. service members, without a critical reflection on the wars themselves, did not emerge by accident. It came about in the Jim Crow period as the Northern and Southern ruling classes sought to reunite the country around apolitical mourning, which required erasing the “divisive” issues of slavery and Black citizenship. These issues had been at the heart of the struggles of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
To truly honor Memorial Day means putting the politics back in. It means reviving the visions of emancipation and liberation that animated the first Decoration Days. It means celebrating those who have fought for justice, while exposing the cruel manipulation of hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members who have been sent to fight and die in wars for conquest and empire.
Always Question Authority 