Tagged: smoke and mirrors
“The United States Human Rights Network has announced that the United States will undergo a five-year Universal Periodic Review on May 11 of its compliance with human rights treaties to which the United States is a signatory. The issue of political prisoners from the COINTELPRO era has been put before the treaty review team…Efia Nwangaza, director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination, spearheaded a four-year campaign to engage the United Nations with unresolved COINTELPRO crimes and unjustly convicted prisoners. Nwangaza frequently talks about ‘the existence of COINTELPRO/Civil Rights Era political prisoners, the conditions of confinement, and the basis for release and compensation under a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.'”
How many African Americans or American citizens of color work for the United States Human Rights Network?
Source: Michael Richardson. “United Nations To Hold COINTELPRO Review In May Under Human Rights Treaty.” Examiner. April 8, 2015. http://www.examiner.com/article/united-nations-to-hold-cointelpro-review-may-under-human-rights-treaty.
“…it merely indicates an imperious determination to skirt around the facts, to hold on to what one wants to believe.”
Source: Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, pg. 243. 1974
“A straw man argument occurs in the context of a debate ― formal or informal ― when one side attacks a position ― the ‘straw man’ ― not held by the other side, then acts as though the other side’s position has been refuted.”
I guess this strategy is similar to pretending that your client’s century-plus pattern and continuing practice of racial discrimination is irrelevant when the aggrieved party’s claims include pre-hiring individual disparate treatment, disparate impact and violations of antitrust law. Just because opposing counsel chooses to ignore compelling evidence which supports that William Morris has intentionally violated federal, state and local law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and color, doesn’t mean that the arguments raised in support of the evidence presented will magically disappear or that the finder of fact can also pretend the evidence doesn’t exist.
“Washington cannot cite to a stack of studies on discrimination that have nothing to do with WME and rely exclusively on them in claiming that WME has been engaged in a 100-year-old conspiracy to maintain white/Jewish dominance of the entertainment industry. To accept Washington’s argument would be to endorse his racial and ethnic stereotyping and to permit a claimant to evade summary judgment based simply upon a generalized and inaccurate view of the entertainment industry and the talent agency workplace. Washington has admitted that WME never treated him differently because of his race; and his claim of disparate treatment fails for that reason alone.” — Michael Zweig of Loeb & Loeb LLP, November 20, 2013
If William Morris were truly innocent of Michael P. Zweig, Christian Carbone and Loeb & Loeb LLP’s criminal and unethical conduct, I think they would have a pretty strong claim for malpractice….
It’s funny to note that this statement was made in direct response to my following statement, in which they quote me in their Final Position Statement [pg. 8]:
Mr. Washington is not alleging that William Morris discriminated against him due to his race, color and/or perceived national origin. Based on the federal, state and city civil and human rights laws, the overwhelming amount of sociological and organizational research on the topic of discrimination in the workplace, and numerous articles published over the decades chronicling this issue of racism in Hollywood in magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly and others, this is fact.
I said this in paragraph 172 of my COMPLAINT that was filed with the Southern District of New York on DECEMBER 21, 2010!! I knew then — “based on the federal, state and city civil and human rights laws, the overwhelming amount of sociological and organizational research on the topic of discrimination in the workplace, and numerous articles published over the decades chronicling this issue of racism in Hollywood….” that I uncovered between June and December 2010 — that my claims of pre and post-hiring individual disparate treatment due to my “race, color and/or perceived national origin” were a “fact.” I was not making an “alleg[ation]” against William Morris any longer (e.g. trying to discuss the issue with former COO Cara Stein and HR’s Carole Katz while employed, filing complaint with EEOC, etc.) and the additional evidence I’ve uncovered over the last three years since filing my complaint (e.g. “Exhibit 31” and the “on-going” conspiracy to conceal these “nigger” e-mails) further proves this is a fact — no matter what conclusion Gregory reaches on December 23, 2013.
black America: STOP comparing POTUS Barack Obama to humanitarian Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today is a national holiday for one of the world’s greatest humanitarians — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Had he not been gunned down by a white supremacist on the balcony of his hotel in Memphis, TN on April 4, 1968, he would have celebrated his 84th birthday six days ago. Not so coincidentally, today also marks the day that America has chosen to inaugurate it’s first “mixed-race” president, Barack Hussein Obama, into his second term. I have always been disturbed by the (black community’s) comparisons of the two (especially the numerous photoshopped images on the Internet or murals throughout inner city ghettos) given that Obama has refused to address the unique historical and contemporary problems (institutional racism and discrimination in employment, housing, health care, education, etc.) that have prevented African Americans — not token individuals — from actualizing their full social, economic and political potential in this country.
But on January 17, 2013, Dr. Cornel West eloquently shared his thoughts on this topic after it was announced that Obama would be taking his oath on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Bible!! 
Me Against Iniquity: Understanding the Complexities of Global White Supremacy (Racism) Through The Eyes of an Unapologetically BLACK Intellectual 