Tagged: Al Sharpton

“Hollywood is like the Rocky Mountains, the higher up you get the whiter it gets and this year’s Academy Awards will be yet another Rocky Mountain Oscars. Yet again, deserving Black actors and directors were ignored by the Academy – which reinforces the fact that there are few if any Blacks with real power in Hollywood. Being left out of Awards consideration is about more than just recognition for a job well done; winning an Oscar has long-lasting cultural and economic impacts.” — Al Sharpton

Of course I agree with Sharpton’s statement, but we all know that this problem isn’t new! What I find interesting is that when I tried to reach out to Sharpton, the NAACP and others about my case years ago, one of Sharpton’s aides said to me that he would only speak out about my case if he was getting paid. Whether I have their support or not, institutionalized racism in Hollywood will be eradicated!

Source: January 14, 2016.  http://nationalactionnetwork.net/press/rev-al-sharpton-blasts-the-academy-of-motion-picture-arts-and-sciences-for-complete-lack-of-diversity-in-2016-oscar-nominations/.

“WHERE [THE FUCK] ARE YOU?” read former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling’s letter to our so-called civil rights leaders & organizations in the U.S. 

Dear NAACP, National Action Network, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Congressional Black Caucus and others:

Where were you?

Where were you when I was faced with blatant discrimination at my job, when my employer told me I was “too big and too black” to do the job?

Where were you when I, one of the first black officers to do so, filed a discrimination suit against the Central Intelligence Agency?

Where were you when the justice system of the United States dismissed my discrimination suit because the U.S. government maintained that trying my suit would endanger national security?

Where were you during the many years I reached out to you, begging, pleading for help from you while the United States government pursued and tormented me for years, bent on retaliation and persecution?

Where were you when I begged for help from Congressman Lacy Clay’s office and they told me to run away, to leave the country? I was there … and I didn’t run.

Where were you when the United States government arrested me, put me in jail and branded me with espionage?

Where were you when the United States put me — the only person and only black face investigated over a 10-year period of time — on trial in federal court on Espionage Act charges, claiming that I am a traitor to national security? When the prosecution used against me the same issues from my discrimination case that I had not been allowed to pursue in civil court? When a jury without a single black member found me guilty, even when the FBI itself said there was no evidence?

Where were you when a white official, Gen. David Petraeus — accused of far more violations than I — was given a slap on the wrist?

Where were you when Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke up for me?

Where were you when the judge sentenced me to prison for 42 months?

I have seen you around.

I saw you when Michael Brown lay dead in the street only a few miles from my home.

I saw you when other black faces were either killed or mistreated. I was out there, too.

I felt the joy and promise of the Million Man March. I felt the joy and the promise when the first black president was elected. I was there with you then.

Though I am invisible to you, others, many others, see me and see the injustice that I have endured for a very long time. Have you not read the editorials, articles and commentaries?

I am now in prison for a crime I did not commit.

The many others I speak of do not claim to be mighty advocates for civil rights on the same level as you, but they are there and have been with me, and will be with me as I appeal. And, they will be with me when I am free.

Where are you?

This is fucked up on so many levels! The NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus and other so-called civil rights organizations have ignored my pleas for help as well so I feel this brother’s pain. If racism was eradicated, there wouldn’t be a real need for organizations like the NAACP, so they are willing to fight only but so far because it’s not in their interest to fight against or support those seeking to eradicate institutional, structural and systemic forms of racism in our society.

Free Jeffrey Sterling!!!!!!!!!!!

Source: Jeffrey Sterling. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. August 13, 2015. http://m.stltoday.com/news/opinion/an-open-letter-to-civil-rights-groups-in-the-u/article_046e6e8f-dcae-568b-8da9-73704d8a4017.html.

“Why is Black America’s leadership allowed to do as they please without answering to the people they represent?” — Maria Lloyd

As the chaos in Ferguson, MO continues to unfold leading up to the announcement of the grand jury’s decision concerning Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot and killed an African-American teen named Michael Brown, I couldn’t help but wonder if policies on Capitol Hill could’ve prevented the racial tension America is experiencing in Ferguson, MO and throughout the rest of the nation.

That thought immediately led me to remember the two closed-door meetings Rev. Al Sharpton, National Urban League President Marc Morial, and then-NAACP President Ben Jealous had with Pres. Obama to discuss a “Black Agenda.” The first meeting convened in February 2010, after renowned commentator Tavis Smiley challenged the aforementioned for publicly stating Pres. Obama should not address the needs of Black Americans (despite chronic joblessness). The meeting left much to be desired as neither of the attendees publicly stated exactly what the Black Agenda they pitched to Pres. Obama consisted of.

It was after the second meeting that convened in December 2012 that Morial published an article on Politic365 detailing the specifics of the Black Agenda which included a reintroduction and passage of the Urban Jobs Act, reintroduction of the American Jobs Act, a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines and a call for universal background checks, a call for citizens to mobilize around the February 27th Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and a reform of the nation’s dysfunctional and discriminatory criminal justice system.

There was even an under-reported third meeting that convened in February 2014. Attendees included Sharpton, Morial, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation President Melanie Campbell, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Wade Henderson, NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, National Bar Association President Patricia Rosier, then-interim NAACP President Lorraine Miller. The topics discussed during that meeting were criminal justice reform, income inequality and the Affordable Care Act, My Brothers Keeper, Black unemployment, job training, minimum wage, restoring and protecting voter rights, and state laws that threatened civil rights (e.g. Stand Your Ground).

The phrase “black America’s leadership” should ALAWAYS be used loosely and with caution since majority of our “leaders” are self-appointed. Read the rest of Maria’s article, to find out how much “progress” has actually been made since the “black leaders” discussed the “Black Agenda” with Obama in February of 2010.

Source: Maria Lloyd. “Hey Sharpton: What Transpired from the Black Agenda Meetings with the POTUS.” November 2014. http://kulturekritic.com/2014/11/news/maria-lloyd-hey-sharpton-transpired-black-agenda-meetings-potus/.

PLEASE hurry up and issue your fraudulently procured “FINAL” decision, so this case – as well as my complaint against Loeb & Loeb LLP and the AAA – can officially go back to the Southern District of New York.

If God made man in his own image,  and the first man on this planet was black and from Africa, what color would God be? White? LMAO! #FUCKracism

where are the Af. American civil and human rights activists that genuinely care about eradicating institutional racism in America? do they exist anymore?

NAACP? Congressional Black Caucus? Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? Cornel West? African American attorneys, journalists, etc.? Anybody out there? Smh.