“Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed.”
What is the price that a people pay for 400 years of “gaslighting”. Personal engagement, cruel punishment without question, severe poverty, newspapers, government policy, TV, media, music . . . . ?
Category Archives: US Justice System
The Central Park Five, Criminal Justice, and Donald Trump | The New Yorker
In two trials, in 1990, Santana, Wise, Richardson, McCray, and Salaam were convicted of the attack, even though there was no physical evidence tying them to it, only their supposed confessions, which contradicted one another. They were sentenced to terms of between five and fifteen years. The accused came to be known as the Central Park Five, but that, too, was a linguistic dodge. Better to identify them by their number and the scene of their alleged crime than by the brutality visited upon them by an arbitrary justice system and the public opinion that abetted it. In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist, confessed to the crime, and, based on DNA evidence, the charges against the five were vacated. In 2014, the city paid them forty-one million dollars, to settle a federal civil-rights lawsuit.
Source: The Central Park Five, Criminal Justice, and Donald Trump | The New Yorker
The Ghosts of 1964: Race, Reagan, and the Neo-conservative Backlash to the Civil Rights Movement – Race, Racism and the Law
Excerpted from: Anthony Cook, The Ghosts of 1964: Race, Reagan, and the Neo-conservative Backlash to the Civil Rights Movement, 6 Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review 81 (2015) (Footnotes) (Full Document)
“American slavery was “officially” buried by our nation’s ratification of the 13 14 and 15 amendments to the constitution. But the ghosts of slavery soon inhabited new forms — political, economic, and cultural — intent on returning Blacks to a position of abject servitude and subordination. Jim Crow segregation embodied slavery’s spirit of White supremacy, allowing it to live on in a different form. The civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century was but another attempt to exorcise from American life the demonic spirit of slavery that had so horrifically deformed American institutions and culture. But by 1980 it was clear, yet again, that notwithstanding the “official” death and burial of old Jim Crow — a death certified by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights, 1965 Voting Rights, and 1968 Fair Housing Acts — the past lived on. The ghosts of American slavery and its mutant offspring, Jim Crow, roamed the land of the free and haunted the home of the brave in search of new cultural, political, and economic practices to possess and infest. American slavery was “officially” buried by our nation’s ratification of the 13 14 and 15 amendments to the constitution. But the ghosts of slavery soon inhabited new forms — political, economic, and cultural — intent on returning Blacks to a position of abject servitude and subordination. Jim Crow segregation embodied slavery’s spirit of White supremacy, allowing it to live on in a different form. The civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century was but another attempt to exorcise from American life the demonic spirit of slavery that had so horrifically deformed American institutions and culture. But by 1980 it was clear, yet again, that notwithstanding the “official” death and burial of old Jim Crow — a death certified by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights, 1965 Voting Rights, and 1968 Fair Housing Acts — the past lived on. The ghosts of American slavery and its mutant offspring, Jim Crow, roamed the land of the free and haunted the home of the brave in search of new cultural, political, and economic practices to possess and infest. ”
Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide – Inequality.org
The deep and persistent racial wealth divide will not close without bold, structural reform. It has been created and held in place by public policies that have evolved with time including slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, mass incarceration, among many others. The racial wealth divide is greater today than it was nearly four decades ago and trends point to its continued widening.
Source: Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide – Inequality.org
Cornel West and the Intellectual Dishonesty of the ADOS Movement
Cornel West recently expressed support for the ADOS movement . . . not surprising… Martin Luther King, whom West has written about, was not a Pan-Africanist, but he clearly saw the connection between the African struggle for freedom and the African American struggle for freedom. King said:
The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same: “We want to be free.”
In embracing ADOS, West is embracing the opposite of King’s vision.
Source: Cornel West and the Intellectual Dishonesty of the ADOS Movement
Time Served-Justice Still Denied: the Wrongful Conviction of Rodney K. Stanberry | freerodneystanberry.com Blog
Rodney K. Stanberry- Innocent and Incarcerated for 20 Years
Rodney K. Stanberry spent 20 years in prison for crimes he did not commit. He received three 20 year sentences to be served concurrently for burglary, attempted murder, and robbery. He was arrested in 1992, convicted in 1995 and began serving a prison sentence in 1997. He left prison on March 13th, 2017. Like Thompson, like Williams and Myers, like Michael Morton, like so many others, his case should have been an open and shut case. The prosecutor had a confession from another individual who was actually present when the crimes took place. The individual who confessed did so BEFORE Rodney’s trial. He had one of the best attorneys in Mobile, AL as his attorney and his attorney told the prosecutor that he would tell him everything. Why would he do this? Because the person who confessed thought the prosecutor was actually interested in arresting and convicting the actual culprits. He knew an eyewitness on the ground saw him as he was exiting the victim’s home. He thought he was caught. He, the person who actually was one of the two people present when the victim was brutally shot, got a firsthand view of how prosecutors will let the guilty go free in order to convict the innocent. And less he thought it was just one prosecutor, Joe Carl Buzz Jordan, he would discover that on Rodney’s appeal, another prosecutor also with the Mobile District Attorney’s Office would go out of her way to ensure that he did not say in court what she knew he would say. So she said if you talk, you are going to get life. She did not want him to go on record to tell the truth, for that would mean that the record further reflected that the Mobile District Attorney’s Office convicted an innocent man. Upholding the conviction should not be more important than letting an innocent man out of prison. http://www.freerodneystanberry.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/tierny_redo.9113550.pdf)
You’ve been arrested by a dishonest cop. Can you win in a system set up to protect officers?
You’ve been arrested by a dishonest cop. Can you win in a system set up to protect officers?
Two years ago, Officer “Smith” was caught lying on an arrest report. He was suspended but kept his job. His misconduct remained secret due to California’s strict laws that protect officer personnel records.
Objective: Help prove your innocence by showing that the cop has a history of lying.
This is an imaginary scenario based on a Times analysis of L.A. court records and interviews with attorneys.Read more about this
SOURCE: LA Times
Credits: Twine, Sugarcube, Fontawesome, L.A. Superior Court records