Kali Akuno of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement joined us as part of our special WPFW 89.3 FM Ferguson and Beyond programming to discuss Operation Ghetto Storm and the Every 28 Hours report on police violence in the U.S.  Important here was specifically Akuno’s ability to address media coverage, appropriation and omission of the report, its findings and framework in approaching the incredible numbers of Black people killed by the police.

PLEDGEPROMO

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  1. Due to ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon’s declaration of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ & ‘Crime’, the US prison population has exploded by at-least 7Xs since 1980. Thru the 1970s up-to about 1980 at-least 60% of US prisoners were white men. Now nearly 50% of US prisoners are Black men & women & about 20% – 25% are Hispanic. White men & women are now barely 30% [to at most 35%] of US prisoners.

    Yet even by FBI stats [& the FBI certainly is NO friend / ally of Black & Brown folks- despite Obama & AG Holder]- whites commit 69% of all serious crime in the US IE: total numbers of homicides committed by whites is nearly the same as by Blacks- Except for DUI Vehicular HOMICIDES where white Drunk Drivers KILL +7Xs MORE Folks than Blacks do [FYI: ‘curiously’ the FBI keeps stats on DUI arrests but NOT directly for DUI vehicular homicides- even though {mainly white} drunk drivers KILL more folks ea yr than are murdered by guns]
    RE: The current ‘hot topics’ of rape & domestic violence- for which Black pro & college foot-ball players are now being scape-goated as the ‘poster child’ for [see Ishmael Reed’s recent piece re: white lame-stream media & ‘feminists’ hypocrisy on this topic @ CounterPunch- which the ‘liberal’ ‘Nation’ rejected]- by FBI stats nearly 2/3s are committed by white men. In fact white men kill nearly TWICE as many white women as Black men kill Black women!! Whites also commit nearly 3/4s of other types of serious sex-offenses.[IE: typical illicit sex scandals w underage students- the offenders are white-women teachers].

    But it’s drugs is where the racial disparities is even more blatant if one takes a serious look [which most whites don’t]. The phony ‘war on drugs’ has been the main tool of mass Black incarceration & fuels drug turf wars in the Hood & Barrio, which along w the systematic gutting of the US’ industrial economic base [leading to systemic unemployment] is likely the main factor for the surge in fratricidal violence in places like Chicago & Baltimore, etc [NO-One ever explains from where & just how all those guns & drugs got to the ‘Hood’ – ala Gary Webb’s story in ‘Kill the Messenger’ -But- Bill Duke’s 1992 film ‘Deep Cover’ starring Lawrence Fishburn told the same story 4 yrs prior to Webb’s expose’].
    According to FBI stats whites commit 2.3Xs more drug offenses than Blacks- but actually it’s worse than that. Whites abuse ALL Drugs [both illegal & ‘legal’] more often than Blacks do- Except for Crack- which 5% of Blacks use crack vs 3.5% of whites. So because whites out number Blacks by 5Xs in the US, simple number crunching says there should be 3.5Xs more whites in jail for crack beefs than Blacks; But it’s the exact opposite [+3Xs more Blacks in jail than whites for crack beefs].
    And Blacks & whites abuse heroin at the same rate. Ishmael Reed also wrote a recent piece about why the lame-stream was ‘shocked’ that so many {even ‘middle-class’} whites are ‘H’ addicts. Yet I’ve personally witnessed whites from affluent suburbs west of Chicago drive to the ‘hood’ on Chicago’s west side & ‘cop’ from Home-boy- Including even white-women all by their lonesome driving Toyota & Subaru station-wagons.
    Never-the-less ‘HRW Watch’ did a 2009 study showing that in the US Blacks are locked up for drug beefs 7X – 10Xs more often than whites are.,Tellingly this holds even in states where Blacks are barely 1% of those states population [IE: HI, UT, NH, N&S Dakotas, etc]. In NONE [0] of the 35 states that HWR reported on was there a 1 to 1 ratio for Black & white drug incarceration rates [let alone where the white rate actually exceeded the Black rate]. The closest to parity was 3 to 1 excess of Black incarceration in Al & ND. In IL the difference was 23 to 1- yet I know for fa fact whites in Chicago did a bunch of dope when I went to college w them, & 2 – 3 decades later they’re still coming to the ‘hood’ on Chicago’s west-side to ‘cop’.

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