Eric Garner’s daughter — and 20 women you might not know back Bernie Sanders

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Originally posted February 12, 2016 on RawStory

Erica Garner-Snipes, whose unarmed father was murdered by police, released an extremely moving video endorsing Bernie Sanders on Thursday. Garner joins a long list of women who don’t fit into the stereotype of the white millenial, skinny-jeans-wearing, Brooklyn-gentrifying Bernie Babe.

The issue of female support for Bernie Sander’s has been in the headlines ever since Gloria Steinem commented on it during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday. When  Maher asked his guest why so many women support Senator Sanders, Steinem explained, “when you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie’.”

Many responded my attacking Steinem’s statements and her approach to feminism. While a debate over intersectionalist feminism has it’s place, I do think it’s unfair to trash Steinem and throw out her invaluable contributions to feminist and progressive movements. And, as the video I made below shows, Steinem herself “felt the Bern” so much, she declared him “an honorary woman” at a campaign event in the fall of 1996.

But this isn’t about Steinem or individual surrogates or endorsements. Her turn of phrase about “where the boys are” does give us an important opportunity to explore exactly who some of the women and girls supporting Sanders actually are and why they are choosing to support him.

 

And here is the amazing video from Erica Garner-Snipes, about why she’s supporting Sanders.

12 “memorable” quotes from Antonin Scalia

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Antonin_Scalia_Official_SCOTUS_Portrait (2)

Originally posted February 14, 2016 on RawStory

Conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who spent decades warning the nation about the flagpole-sitting nature of homosexuality, died of natural causes on Friday at a luxury resort in Texas. He was 79.

Death is always sad. I feel bad for his family. And it’s not time to talk about politics. (Unless you’re a Republican who really wants to honor Scalia’s memory by using his death to push for a totally unheard of postponement of his replacement so it happens after Obama leaves office.)

But it might be time to memorialize the man through rounding up some of the most memorable things he ever said or wrote.

1.Homosexuality: It’s a lot like murder!  Romer v. Evans challenged a Colorado amendment which banned outlawing anti-gay discrimination (I know, I have a headache, too) in 1993. Justice Scalia expressed his sympathy for the people of Colorado, who wanted nothing more than to protect themselves from gay sex like they would from murder:

The Court’s opinion contains… hints that Coloradans have been guilty of ‘animus’ or ‘animosity’ toward homosexuality, as though that has been established as Unamerican. . . . I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible–murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals–and could exhibit even ‘animus’ toward such conduct.

2. Homosexuality: it’s a lot  like incest! The Supreme Court struck down a Texas ban on sodomy in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas. Amazingly, Scalia’s murder comparison had not convinced his colleagues of the danger posed by the gays. So he tried again. Only this time, with a different analogy.

States continue to prosecute all sorts of crimes by adults “in matters pertaining to sex”: prostitution, adult incest, adultery, obscenity, and child pornography

3. Homosexuality: it’s a lot like flagpole sitting! To his credit, Scalia would try, time and time again, to use the power of simile to enlighten his colleagues. Within the same dissent, he pointed out that not everything was a right just because it had once been illegal. The act he chose to use to demonstrate is a great American pastime:

Suppose that all the states had laws against flagpole sitting at one time [which they then overturned].Does that make flagpole sitting a fundamental right?

4. Legalizing same-sex marriage: nothing more than ‘fortune cookie justice.’  When the Court legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, Scalia lamented that,

The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.

5. Legalizing same-sex marriage: nothing more than pretentious, egomaniacal ‘fortune cookie justice.’ In the same dissent, he described the majority opinion as being,

couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic.

6. ladies: not protected by the Constitution. Scalia didn’t limit himself to reactionary ideologies based on sexual orientation. Ironically, his bigotry embraced the diversity and equality that, he claimed, the Constitution lacked. During a 2011 interview with California Lawyer, Scalia said,

Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws.

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Hillary Clinton on Reparations, Bernie Sanders & Killer Mike Cop Buddy Movies

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On this episode of The Katie Halper Show, we are joined by Fusion journalist Nando Vila, the man who asked Bernie Sanders about his position on reparations which reignited the debate started by Ta-Nehisi Coates. While Sanders is being criticized about his position of the issue, what is Clinton’s position? Find out here, where we play the response she gave which nobody is talking about for some reason. Plus Reagan’s reparations support, Killer Mike and Bernie Sanders cop buddy films and more! Next Wednesday, Feb 3, join us on the radio at 6pm AND In person at 8pm for our #OscarsNotAtAllWhite ceremony and show!

Greg Grandin: U.S. created the Central American gangs & violence people are fleeing

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On this really, really engaging and informative episode historian Grandin takes us on a virtual tour of Central America, a land of beauty, enchantment, and U.S.-supported death squads. Then let Bill Conroy exposes the hypocrisy and opportunism behind mainstream media’s contempt for Sean Penn and his interview with El Chapo. Grandin goes over government’s rich contributions to the violence of Central America, starting with the 1950s (or else we’d be here all day) when we helped the coup in Guatemala that set off a civil war; the 1980s when we trained the Contras in Nicaragua and the death squads in El Salvador; the 1990s when we imposed “free market” neoliberal policies AND tightened border security to keep out the people we knew would be displaced (because we think of EVERYTHING!); the 21st century when we continued those policies, did jack s&*^ over the coup in Honduras… and we’re not even talking about Mexico or Colombia yet! Then Bill Conroy who has worked as an investigative journalist covering the drug wars and law enforcement corruption debunks what the mainstream media and Mexican authorities are saying about Sean Penn and his interview with El Chapo. Conroy frames the freakout as part of a larger fear on the part of gatekeeping journalists and reveals one of the things they are attacking Penn over is something they routinely do, but don’t even admit it. Follow us on Soundcloud, like us on Facebook and subscribe on iTunes!

Jay Smooth: The Ill Doctrine, Underground Railroad & Disenfranchised cheese puffs

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On our first episode of the Live Katie Halper Show i front of an audience we talk to Jay Smooth, founder and host of The Underground Railroad and of the ill Doctrine video series. His videos have garnered millions of views and praise from people like Rachel Maddow who has called his work genius. Find out what Jay Smooth’s favorite drink and snack are, what he thinks of gun violence, Empire, gentrification and what his grandfather said about The Beatles in the New York Times.

Bill Cosby: Jay Smooth & comedians Rae Sanni & Tarik Daniels.

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11 Most Anti-Capitalist Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Image: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Flickr Creative Commons)
Image: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Flickr Creative Commons)

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. To be fair, I guess I should wish “Sorry it’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day” to the people who don’t believe it should be a holiday and the politicians who voted against making it one. I’m talking to you, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ),  Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA).

While both parties attempt to claim Dr. King, the Republicans have a much harder time doing so without distorting history and the truth. But the truth is, most politicians would distance themselves from Dr. King’s stunning (and spot on) indictments of capitalism.  There are, of course, a few exceptions, here and there.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, let’s look at some of the things he said challenged capitalism and are left out of most history books.

  1. “I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” – Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952.
  2. “In a sense, you could say we’re involved in the class struggle.” –Quote to New York Times reporter, José Igelsias, 1968.
  3. “And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…” –Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
  4. “Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.”Speech to Southern Christian Leadership Conference Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 1967.
  5. “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” – Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.
  6. “We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”- Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.
  7. “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” –Speech to SCLC  Board, March 30, 1967.
  8. “I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective – the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed matter: the guaranteed income… The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” – Where do We Go from Here?, 1967.

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Black comedians on Bill Cosby: ‘Your hero is evil. It hurts but it’s true.’

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Actor Bill Cosby speaks at the National Action Network's 20th annual Keepers of the Dream Awards gala in New York April 6, 2011. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
Actor Bill Cosby speaks at the National Action Network’s 20th annual Keepers of the Dream Awards gala in New York April 6, 2011. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)

Originally published on RawStory

Charges against Bill Cosby for aggravated indecent assault, which his legal team tried to have dismissed on Monday, have reignited a debate not just about the comedian’s guilt or innocence but about the role of race and racism. While many former defenders have defected over mounting allegations and revelations from an unsealed deposition, some of the people who continue to champion Cosby are framing it as the latest example of a racist criminal justice system which punishes Black men for doing things that white men get away with. Rapper Waka Flocka tweeted that he think’s the someone is “framing” Cosby, through “an organized lie,” and “propaganda.” He also tweeted that, “Every time a famous minority make it they throw salt in the game.” Rapper The Game took to Instagram, where posted an blank white image with the word Black and commented,

 “I think it’s crazy that Bill Cosby has a mugshot for alleged assaults 11 years ago with no physical evidence or proof besides these womens accounts of what he did to them an entire decade later…. But Darren Wilson, who killed Mike Brown on camera… George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin… Timothy Loehman, who killed Tamir Rice seconds after arriving on the scene.. on camera, is FREE… Why did it take these women over 10 years to bring this to the light ?- The Game #BlackLivesSplatter

Comedian Eddie Griffin, for example, said, “There is a systematic effort to destroy every black male entertainer’s image…. They want us all to have an asterisk by our name. Kobe, raped a white woman in Colorado. Dr. Cosby, raped 37 bitches and counting. Nobody leaves this business clean.”

Of course several Black comedians like Larry Wilmore and Franchesca Ramsey have condemned Cosby and spoken about the intsection of rape culture and racism. And it was Hannibal Buress, who used his own standup to point out Cosby’s hypocrisy—telling young Black men to pull their pants up, while being a rapist– that propelled the Cosby story into our national dialogue.

 

In order to further explore how Black comedians were navigating this issue, I spoke to Rae Sanni and Tarik Daniels on my radio show. Sanni told us, “There’s a lot of people who bring up Woody Allen or Roman Polanski when you talk about Bill Cosby and say this guy got away with rape,” she said. “That is uninteresting to me because the idea that equality is everybody getting away with rape is silly.” For Sanni, “people like Eddie Griffin, who attribute accusations against Cosby to “an attempt at the destruction of the Black man,  are the kind of people that think that Black liberation doesn’t necessarily include Black women. Because if you think that the way to Black liberation is to allow the abuse of one half of the population, then you don’t believe in Black liberation at all. You actually just want the access to patriarchy that white males have access to.”

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Live taping of The Katie Halper show with special guest Jay Smooth, Mexican Cabaret, interviews with Dar Williams, Sarah Jones & more.

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The Katie Halper Show Live & In Person

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https://i0.wp.com/static.tumblr.com/4a95a81b0a24640608b94837f212d8fa/hqlutwl/ZP1nr6lyq/tumblr_static_189ja7p3j874w840g4o8o848c_2048_v2.png

Wednesday, January 6 at 8 p.m. – Commons Cafe, 388 Atlantic Ave

We’re doing our first live version of The Katie Halper Show from The Brooklyn Commons, the cafe/ bar and performance space! We’ll be interviewing the Jay Smooth, whose videos on politics, race, and hiphop have garnered millions of views and praise from the likes of Rachel Maddow, who calls his work “genius,” Wired Magazine, which dubs him “the hardest blogging man in hip hop” and Salon, which named him one of the “sexiest men living.” A native New Yorker, Jay is the host and founder of NYC’s longest running hip hop show, The Undergrounded Railroad, on WBAI. Gabriel Pacheco, Reggie Johnson & Katie Halper will to Jay about things both personal and political over drinks and snacks. The audience will be able to ask questions too!