So it’s been a couple of days since the latest mass shooting by yet another young racist Caucasian/”white” coward targeting “Black” people as the source of everything wrong with his life. Is it me or do these mass shootings seem to be on the uptick to where we as a collective nation are hearing about them just about every other day? The mass murdering cowards list of goons just added the name Payton Gendron to its infamous list.
An 18 year old racist/white supremacist who wrote a manifesto explaining why he targeted a “Black” neighborhood and specifically a soft target such as a grocery store “Tops” in Buffalo, NY. I don’t even want to start with his ideology before addressing his parents and relatives. This murderer’s actions can be laid directly at their feet. There’s no way I will be convinced that he didn’t learn his hatred and racism of “Black” people at home. His parents birthed that evil cowardly monster. I don’t think we should even read his manifesto which he published online because it would be giving him attention he doesn’t deserve.
There’s no point in trying to understand the mind of a monster who isn’t mentally ill. It’s clear he wasn’t mentally ill at the time he planned and carried out his mission of murdering innocent “Black” people at a grocery store because of the meticulous planning involved. The location being 200 miles from his home. The fact that he wasn’t shot dead immediately by law enforcement responding to his killing spree is also telling. In one account a witness claims a Caucasian shopper was screaming for his life and this evil goon apologized to that person and didn’t shoot him but purposely went after “Black” people as targets for his bullets from his bushmaster rifle which had the N word written on it.
The racist’s patterns of behavior are of a historic nature in terms of the constant attacks on us as a people ie “Black” people in this nation built by our ancestors of the past and us today. Everything good about this nation, has been achieved because of our excellence, our stolen labor, our bodies, our ideas, our inventions, our creativity, our ingenuity, our indomitable will to not just survive but thrive despite all of the evils we have faced and continue to face. Just think about it, anything that adds to the lives of mankind at large comes from us. We are the first and original people on the planet. There can be no doubt this realization is the real reason behind the hateful mindset of white supremacists.
Perhaps the realization that demonic hateful people by and large will have short life spans and low reproductive numbers due to their inherently evil nature is another reason for this unspeakable wickedness. The irrationality of racists attacking those who have no power or control over their anything and yet we thrive is yet another reason why so many of these young cowards grab the gun so easily. The majority of them can’t fight, can’t compete, can’t create anything without stealing it from somebody else first and on top of that project every horrible character trait they have onto those whom aren’t protected nor have a system tailor made for their success.
Mainstream news media downplaying this latest hate crime filled mass murderer shooting that directly targeted “Black” people is not surprising. The writing has been on the wall for a long time now. We are at war. This has to be a call to all of us to wake up and arm ourselves. We have the right as does any living breathing human being to defend our lives when attacked. Law enforcement at every level is rife with the same kind of people as one Payton Gendron “Loser for life”, who threw his life away over something he can’t change… The will of God.
Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Spring 2020: The Black Period (Covid19 aka Coronavirus)
by:
THEJNSREPORT
So it’s April 23rd, 2020. Everything except essential businesses have shut down. Last day of work was more than a month ago. A deep sadness grips our family at the passing of our father on Easter Sunday. Dad’s now counted among the many deaths attributed to Covid19 aka Coronavirus. He was in a nursing home as well as at high risk for elderly persons who preexisting conditions.
All I can say is when I received the phone call that my dad was rushed to the hospital with shallow breathing I thought he’s been through a lot but God will see him through. I wanted to go check on in at the hospital but due to restrictions because of the Corona virus neither myself or any of my family members was allowed to be there by his side. I hadn’t been able to see him once the nursing home said they had shut down all access to residents because of the pandemic a few days after my last day at work.
Surreal disbelief came over me when less than an hour after hearing my dad was admitted to the hospital my sister calls to give me the horrible news that our father had passed on. Even now it’s so sharp and fresh in my mind I feel like this is all a dream like in the Matrix. How incredible it is that with all of the health issues my dad battled with it was Covid19 that was his undoing according to doctors who tried to resuscitate my dad. The timing of everything as it unfolds is just remarkable.
I won’t belabor the fact of where this pandemic originated. However, I’ll say this is definitely a cyclical judgment falling on the whole world. This “world time out” has caused everyone to stop and reflect and take a very deep breath because of what’s to follow. Daily and systematically we are being tested as citizens, as civilians, as workers, as human beings with what we do when crisis occurs. News outlets we depend on for information are on 24/7 Corona virus reporting. As I start to tune out the white noise and ludicrous statements of the “Joke in chief” sitting in the White House something else comes to mind to focus on while the world has slowed down enough to take a breath albeit with much trepidation. What have we been seeing?
Erosion of the protections of the Constitution continue at break neck speed while the economy is suppressed, big businesses receive the lion share of taxpayer funded bailouts and tens of millions of us file for unemployment. Who would have thunk this just 6 months ago? I think this is a pivotal time period. I say that because in our life time we as a planet have never seen something like this pandemic. We’ve only heard of them in history. Pandemics like the Bubonic Plague, the Spanish Influenza, and numerous others. These are scary and precarious times. Death appears all around us and we’re reminded daily through news briefings and social media about social distancing, masks, face shields, PPE shortages, lack of testing, and total unpreparedness with the douche bag in chief at the White House in charge. Just to think he and his administration willfully dismantled the team of experts whose job it was to plan and prepare for events such as this current pandemic.
Who to believe and what to believe tugs at us daily. I’m hearkened back to a line from the Devil’s Advocate where Al Pacino aka Satan tells his son Kevin played by Keanu Reeves to “consider the source”. The problem is can we believe everything or anything we see on mainstream media these days? Picking out the truth from the lies isn’t as easy as it sounds. You have people spreading misinformation. You have “TV doctors giving advice” as if they’ve ever dealt with a pandemic of this magnitude before. Then you have people who want to just go out and do whatever they want to do in spite of the Covid19 outbreak.
Things I never thought we’d see have happened. Losing one’s livelihood literally overnight is beyond jarring. It’s like being suddenly awakened from a deep sleep where you are dreaming a pretty good dream and then it’s over while you have someone angrily waking you up. It’s a weird feeling not having to get up daily and go to work, or go to a bar, or restaurant or movies, or bowling or anything that we do socially as human beings. NYC still doesn’t sleep but there isn’t much to do these days other than eat, drink, exercise at home or outside briefly these days.
Ordering take out for me is not going to happen. Why? How can anyone trust food from any restaurant that has people working in it where they could potentially have Covid19 and be around food prepping it for others? Even if we assume the highest cleanliness standards, just the thought that I don’t feel it’s worth potentially getting sick from take out is enough to deter that idea especially when I can cook for myself and my family. Having to stay at home and cook daily reminds me of childhood home economics class and household chores I hated doing as a kid with my siblings. Now present day this isn’t anything I can’t adapt to. I’m finding it fun to actually shop for healthy (or in some cases not so healthy) ingredients and make a tasty meal I wouldn’t mind eating more than once.
The question on everyone’s mind is how long will this last and how do we as a world collectively move forward from this pandemic? How much corruption will come out when this is all over? How will the economy recover? Are we going to have to wear respirators to go outside next? Already to even enter a grocery store you must be wearing a mask which I have no objection to but this is today’s new normal. latex gloves, masks and at least six feet of separation when out in public. What I hope never becomes the new normal is a mandatory vaccination or some other way to usurp the 4th amendment using the guise of public safety. I’m hoping for a better tomorrow but trusting in the most high and not man is what is key for me.
When Police Chief O’Neill announced that police officer Daniel Pantaleo was terminated from the NYPD some thought that should be enough to satisfy Eric Garner’s family and the calls for justice. Why it took five years to come to this decision is simple.
The NYPD never wants to find any of its employees guilty of doing anything wrong on/off the job. When you have any organization that investigates itself alone, there should be no surprise when that organization continuously finds no wrong doing on its part, even and especially when someone’s life has been taken away and unnecessarily so.
For too long police have been used to getting away with murder, literally. For too long they have been paid while under investigation after killing someone unjustly while the blue wall rally’s to cover up for it. The mainstream media (also in cahoots with law enforcement) attack the victim’s character, name and/or reputation as justification for an unnecessary killing of an unarmed man (at least six more officers were involved in Eric Garner’s public lynching) while defending the actions of the police saying we must be calm, we’re not to react, we’re not to react with violence, and wait for the wheels of justice to turn.
Defending our selves is a must every second of every day everywhere in this world. Being vigilant, but also relentless in our pursuit of justice and accountability is an absolute must.
A silver lining to this development is that this murdering officer doesn’t get to collect a pension from our tax paying dollars to live on after having done what he did. The other officers involved should have also been fired. Pantaleo’s firing does send a message but is far from doing anything really substantive in the way of restitution to the Garner family. How do you replace a life taken? You simply can’t. There’s no amount of money that can absolve that heinous sin.
What I’d like to see happen afterward is that Pantaleo be personally sued for Eric Garner’s death and held liable to support Mr Garner’s children and widow for the rest of his life. Would that ever happen? Given the track record of how justice has gone for us in America and around the world most likely not.
Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Ferry Service Returns to The Boogie Down!!!
For more than 80 years ferry service has been a forgotten transportation option for residents of the Bronx. Instead many Bronx residents had no alternative way to get to and from the city other than driving, taking the bus, or subways in and out. The commute times made it basically a horribly long commute to get to and from work for many residents who don’t or couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan. Several years ago we mentioned that docks were being built up in the Soundview section of the Bronx a neighborhood I know all to well as myself and my siblings grew up there.
Let me paint the picture for you. Imagine a hybrid area that seems part suburban and part inner city. Private homes on one side and projects just a few blocks away from the private homes. A two fare zone to get to and from this area meant for many of us walking to bus routes like the Bx27 or Bx39 taking a ride to the subway with overcrowded, often late more times than not buses, then transferring to trains, that depending on your station stop were either local or connected to an express 6 train to bring you into the city.
Now if you worked in a place like say Brooklyn that would mean once you exited the subway station stop you had to pay another fare to take the bus to your final destination or if in the city paying another fare on a bus to connect you to wherever in the city you had to go. All this while dealing with the chaos that is the MTA wrought with delay after delay and signal problems while playing the standard BS PA “We’re delayed due to train traffic ahead of us”.
Many a time you would sit there sigh and dream of what it would be like to sit on a ferry like the ones that connect Staten Island to Manhattan. A quick 30 minute ride over the water was just a distant dream. Today August 15, 2018 Mayor De Blasio along with local news marked the opening day of ferry service that connects Soundview to 90th Street, 34th Street, and Wall Street. The ferry ride is huge and not only signals that improved commuter life is here for many Bronx residents but that real estate prices are most certainly going to rise for homeowners in close proximity to the ferry. I imagine a rebirth and revitalization similar to the gentrification we’ve seen going on in places like Williamsburg, Queens, & the South Bronx where new luxury condo buildings are going up just over the 3rd Ave Bridge.
Once this ferry service proves it’s worth we should anticipate expansion of service to be a demand as more and more commuters flee packed 6 trains and local buses for this more scenic and preferable transportation option which currently is the same cost as a bus or subway ride. The only question I have is why the hell did it take so long?
Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: The Stand Your Ground Law & It’s Implications
By now everyone in the U.S has probably heard of the Stand Your Ground Law (unless you live under a rock) which was brought to public consciousness with the high profile murder case of George Zimmerman who gunned down 17 year old Trayvon Martin in his father’s neighborhood in Florida back in 2012. George Zimmerman a disgusting excuse for a human-being whose prejudice & racist attitude coupled with the use of the “Stand Your Ground Law” allowed him to basically get away with murdering an African American kid. Make no mistake, a 17 year old is still just a kid. This was a grown man with a hatred of people of color and the desire to become law enforcement who failed to become an officer of the law despite his numerous attempts.
His unhealthy obsession with becoming a police officer drove him to study criminal justice and self defense in particular because he wanted to have a legal means of killing people of color. Despite all the facts of the case America’s stubborn racist mindset and rigged judicial system along with “Lord Voldemort” himself Mark O’Meara convinced a jury that only one person was allowed to use the Stand Your Ground Law when the confrontation occurred between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.
Due to his death at the hands of George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin was unable to testify that he was stalked, attacked, wrestled to the ground as he fought valiantly for his life and ultimately shot at point blank range by George Zimmerman in the dark of night while rain fell.
Without rehashing all the details of that night the implications are clear. If you are a person of color and in particular an African American male/female child or adult, young or old, your life can be taken (without remedy) by anyone be it an ordinary citizen or a police officer. Open season was declared with the not guilty verdict. How did America allow this to happen? The answer is America has always allowed this to happen. Her soil is saturated and drunken full with the blood and bodies of innumerable African American people while the judicial system regards their lost lives as foot notes not worthy of mention and rightfully taken by anyone who sees fit to do so.
People can point to the “holocaust” it’s survivors and the descendants of survivors with empathy and remembrance along with monetary compensation for them to help with their recovery from those concentration camps. Under former President Obama, America gave $12 million dollars to “Jewish” holocaust survivors and/or their descendants. What do people point to when it comes to the innumerable number of African/Afro – American lives lost to slavery, rape, murder, public lynching, Jim Crow, & convict leasing programs not to mention the mass incarceration of Afro-Americans brought on by the Clinton era? Nothing…not a peep.
“Stand Your Ground” is just another legal affront to African American people and should be stricken from the law books. One should not be afforded the protections of Stand Your Ground” when initiating a conflict and then claiming self defense to justify murder. Do you notice when a person of color tries to use “Stand Your Ground” that defense isn’t allowed? What are we to do? As it stands we’re currently damned if we do, double damned if we don’t. Perhaps with backs to the wall the answer is (if there is no legal recourse or protection for African-American people) to arm yourselves anyway. Personally, I think it better to have a chance at self defense than no defense at all. Fuck a system that doesn’t give a shit whether you live or die so long as money can be made off your talents, your labor, your physical body, your life, your property, and your intellect. This onslaught can’t go on unchecked and unchallenged.
What I know from experience is that it’s only when you stand up for yourself that people respect you. What incentive is there to change anything if the people affected aren’t willing to fight for the change?
For most people lets face it MLK Jr. Day has become a day in which not a lot of emphasis is really put on celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.
It’s a day where the kids get to be home from school relishing a 3 day weekend of binging on junk food, watching TV, playing video games, and/or going to the movies while the mainstream media plays either an excerpt or the entire “I have a Dream” speech (depending on the network) in remembrance of Dr. King.
Most people say a few words about how great the “I have a Dream” speech is and was and what the dream speech means today. As a black man living in NYC modern day I see that the dream still hasn’t been realized and I’m not sure that it ever will be just based on the past few years happenings.
As a black man living in a “post MLK Jr. America” I keep thinking about the lack of leadership we have in the black community today. At the same time I wonder why is it that America so readily celebrates MLK Jr. but acts as if Malcolm X never existed or shouldn’t be in the same breath as MLK Jr. Personally I believe we should be celebrating both of these iconic black leaders not just one.
We can agree that both of these great men were critical to the mindset of waking up the world to the plight of black people living the daily grind and constant uphill battle facing us as a nation and people living in a country that practices the opposite of what it preaches. From slavery, to segregation, to Jim Crow, to Civil Rights Era, to modern day slavery reincarnated as the American Prison Industrial Complex the reality is America still is what it always was.
The reason why MLK Jr. is celebrated is because he was the less threatening of the two leaders within the black community. The belief that passive nonviolence would eventually overcome the atrocities we face continually, while being told to wait for justice that almost never comes, was more appealing than a man waking up to the reality of his plight in a system that is designed around his oppression, suppression, theft of his property, ignorance of his/her rights & labor being supplied without the commensurate compensation if at all.
Malcolm X’s “By any means necessary” meant there would be active resistance when necessary in the defense and protection of one’s life, family and/or property. History has shown that nothing has ever been achieved through just passivity alone. It takes action, it takes being willing to die for the rights and freedoms this country is supposed to afford all it’s citizens even if that fight is against fellow citizens who refuse to acknowledge that not just they, but all of human beings deserve the same respect and rights afforded to some.
Tell us what’s really changed since the days of MLK Jr. and Malcolm X with regards to the plight of black people living in America today.
We watched in horror as a cowardly low life cop wannabe reject got away with the murder of a 17 year old Trayvon Martin using a law that only afforded the killer (Zimmerman) the application of the law of stand your ground. The victim’s last screams for help were stolen as was his young life and claimed by his killer George Zimmerman to bolster claims of self defense. No weight was given to the fact that Zimmerman was in fact the aggressor or that Trayvon Martin also had a right to stand his ground. The only problem was there no video evidence to show us what exactly happened and the knowledge of the law and the media vilification of a 17 year old allowed a murderer to go free recast as the actual victim. This is some America.
We watched in horror as the news media showed the bullet riddled body of a young 18 year old Michael Brown Jr. laying dead in the street of Ferguson, MO for at least several hours. The officer responsible for his killing able to lie and give an account of what he said led to him shooting an unarmed teenager as many times as he did when he was in no threat of danger to himself. Eyewitnesses were dismissed as confused or mistaken as to what actually happened and with no video to show the public of his tragic last moments, both the judicial systems refusal to indict an officer and the power of the blue wall protecting their own once again meant there would be no justice.
We watched as another officer shot a 12 year old Tamir Rice to death literally in 2 seconds based off some asshole calling the police acting as if a child playing with a toy gun was a grown man walking around brandishing a real gun. We watched as Freddie Gray’s spine was severed at the hands of the police in Baltimore before he was loaded into the back of a police van. They claimed he had a weapon when he was arrested and was arrested for simply running when he saw those who would ultimately take his life.
The fact that he ran was used as justification for his arrest and subsequent death. They can claim he broke his neck inside that van all they want but the video showing his arrest clearly shows he was unable to stand up on his own two feet let alone walk as he was dragged in obvious agony to the back of a police van before he was loaded inside.
The accounts of the officers as far as what transpired after he was inside the van we can take with a grain of salt. Cops lie and routinely lie especially when it comes to their accounts of what happens when they interact with the public at large. The prosecutor Mosby never had a chance to get justice for Freddie Gray because there is no independent prosecutor to prosecute police officers when they run afoul of the law themselves.
They are above the law and every time they kill a citizen of the U.S in unjustifiable cold blood and they aren’t prosecuted and found guilty, reinforces the idea that the police are above the law. They not only get paid leave after they kill, they get to go home spend time with their families, and whine about how unfair their treatment is by the media and anyone questioning them. Meanwhile they continue to have jobs afterward and probably get promoted.
We watched as police officers murdered Eric Garner on video and no one was punished for his death even though there was clear video evidence of wrong doing. No indictments. How does that work?
We watched as a police officer Michael Slager murdered Walter Scott on video unbeknownst to the officer who then planted a taser on or next to Scott’s body after he shot him to death to claim Scott went for his taser so he had to shoot him. Without that video from a bystander we would only have heard the officers account and the public as well as the judicial system would have believed the officer. As for the victim Walter Scott, his account wouldn’t be believed even if he had lived to tell it without video corroborating it.
We watched as the killer of Jordan Davis (Michael Dunn) got convicted not for his murder but for the attempted murder of his three surviving friends. How crazy is that? Even the ballistics showed Michael Dunn a liar and was not in any imminent threat of grave bodily harm from the teenagers he met and exchanged words with over loud music. They were all unarmed young black teenagers and tragically one of them lost his life and received no justice. Save for his friends surviving, Michael Dunn would be free today just like George Zimmerman.
We watched in horror as the news reports came out about the historical Black Church Massacre in South Carolina where Dylan Roof murdered nine congregation members including the pastor of the church after sitting among them for over an hour. His motivations were clear and that he was able to not only walk away alive after committing the heinous acts he did but was rewarded with Burger King tells us everything we need to know about America. I’ve yet to hear of a case in which a black suspect is wanted for killing that many people and is taken first of all ALIVE, and secondly to Burger King to eat afterwards courtesy of law enforcement. Roof’s conviction and death penalty sentence is one glimmer of hope for an ocean of black victims still waiting for justice.
We witnessed all these things while America watched it’s first Black President at the end of his second and final term in office. I can’t even recall a memorable speech the outgoing president made with all these killings of unarmed black people by fellow citizens and/or police alike. The only one that comes immediately to mind is the president saying if he had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin. It’s that kind of Duh moment that just leaves one shaking his/her head like What? As January 20th rapidly approaches and America ushers in the Trump Era I think it sufficient to say we have very far to go if we’ll ever see dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. realized. I don’t think I’ll live to see it come to fruition in my life time.
Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Spring towards Summer 2016!
😀 Finally the weather in the city has started to make us believe that Spring is definitely sprung. Making it through another day is a blessing we can only give God thanks for. Channeling my inner “green”. Nature in the concrete jungle 2016!Check out the touch of Green HydrangeaThe Super Close Up on a “Touch Of Green” Hydrangea
All images are the property of www.thejnsreport.com (c) 2016. All rights reserved.
Finally the weather in the city has started to make us believe that Spring is definitely sprung. Making it through another day is a blessing we can only give God thanks for. Channeling my inner “green”. Nature in the concrete jungle 2016!
Check out the touch of Green Hydrangea
The Super Close Up on a “Touch Of Green” Hydrangea
THEJNSREPORT
THEJNSREPORT 