Is Post-Racialism Marching On in America?

Here is a great blog post about Los Almitos Mayor Dean Grose, showing the White house lawn prepped for the annual Watermelon hunt. The blog post outlines how Post-Racialism Marches On in America. H/T and Shout Out to Afrospear blogger Abdul Kargbo for the post. Check out his blog T’ings ‘n Times

Image distributed by Los Almitos Mayor Dean Grose, showing the White house lawn prepped for the annual Watermelon hunt. Grose is claiming he was unaware of the racial stereotype that Black people love watermelon.

Lest anyone was having trouble remembering that we are now living in a post-racial America, here are a few reminders.

In Los Alamitos, Mayor Dean Grose has come under fire for sending a doctored photo titled “No Easter egg hunt this year.” Offended recepients, including Keyanus Price, a Black businesswoman, have demanded an apology from the mayor. Speaking in his own defense, the mayor claimed that he had no idea there was a racial stereotype involving Black people and watermelons.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of the New York Post, issued a reluctant apology for the above cartoon, drawn by Sean Delonas.

Other examples of post-racialism at work have attracted nationwide attention. Take, for example, the New York Post cartoon in which two White officers shoot dead a chimpanzee, and one of the officers says to the other, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” While the Post and its supporters tried to argue that the cartoon ape and the reference to the stimulus bill were not coded racist references to President Barack Obama, there is no escaping the association. Although admittedly the president is not the bill’s author, a cursory Google search on the term “stimulus bill” turns up tons of articles that reference Obama in their opening paragraphs (see also here). So while the cartoonist may want people to believe that the link was unintentional, the reality is that on one hand, the ape has long been used as a racist caricature of Black people, and on the other hand, there is a long history of White people doing violence to Black people. When the links among the stimulus bill and Barack Obama, the history of police violence towards Black men, and the ape as a racist caricature are considered, it’s hard—if not impossible—not to see the racist overtones in this cartoon.

Sadly, some of the other signs of post-racialism are much more real than a doctored photo or a newspaper cartoon, and the town of Paris, Texas provides a few examples. Paris is where a 14-year-old Black girl was sentenced to seven years in a juvenile prison for pushing a hall monitor. The sentencing judge had earlier sentenced a young White girl to probation for arson! Paris is also home to Turner Industries’ pipe factory, whose Black employees are complaining that nooses, confederate flags, and racist graffitti are prominently displayed all over their workplace.

Ah yes! We are living in heady times! Post-racial fever is sweeping the nation and everybody’s catching the bug! According to CNN, there has been a huge upswing in the number of Americans joining hate groups. Don Black, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard (what an unfortunate last name for a KKK Grand Wizard!?), told the cable news network that 2,000 people joined his online hate group the day after Obama’s inauguration: prior to the inauguration, he got about 80 new members a day. More HERE

Cross posted at African American Political Pundit.com

No Post-Racial McDonald's

Well it looks like McDonald's is not feeling Post-Racial. According to Raw Story fast food giant McDonald's has denied workers compensation benefits to a minimum wage employee who was shot when he ejected a customer who had been beating a woman inside the restaurant.



A representative of the administrator for McDonald's workers compensation plan explained that "we have denied this claim in Nigel Haskett, then aged 21, was working at a McDonald's in Little Rock, Arkansas last summer when he saw a patron, later identified as Perry Kennon, smacking a woman in the face. A surveillance video of the incident, which had been posted to YouTube, was taken down after McDonald's charged copyright infringement, but according to written descriptions of the video, Haskett tackled Kennon, threw him out, and then stood by the door to prevent him from reentering. More Here H/T Raw Story

Not another "slap in the face of African-Americans."

The highest-ranking black congressman says opposition to the federal stimulus package by southern governors is "a slap in the face of African-Americans."

Blogger, African American Political Pundit says: Your kidding right? Are southern governors in 2009 really slapping black folks in the face? This is 2009 right, not the 1950's.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. is shown in this August file photo at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Clyburn, the highest-ranking black congressman, said that opposition to the federal stimulus package by southern GOP governors is 'a slap in the face of African-Americans.' (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said Thursday he was insulted when the GOP governors of several states said they might not accept some of the money from the $787 billion stimulus package. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he would accept the money.

Rick Perry of Texas, center, is one a number of Republican governors who are considering turning down some of the stimulus package money.

Clyburn said he was trying to protect black Americans when he added a provision to the stimulus package that would let state lawmakers override governors who oppose it. More HERE

As reported by the NY Times, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, said that he would reject the money for expanding unemployment insurance.

“There is some we will not take in Mississippi,” Governor Barbour told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We want more jobs. You don’t get more jobs by putting an extra tax on creating jobs.”

In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Barbour criticized the stimulus law, saying: “It’s filled with social policy and costs too much. You could create just as many jobs for about half as much money.”

Meanwhile, as reported by MSNBC the U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 House Democrat, said the governors — some of whom are said to be eyeing White House bids in 2012 — are putting their own interests first.

"No community or constituent should be denied recovery assistance due to their governor's political ideology or political aspirations," Clyburn said Wednesday.

In fact, governors who reject some of the stimulus aid may find themselves overridden by their own legislatures because of language Clyburn included in the bill that allows lawmakers to accept the federal money even if their governors object. More HERE

AAPP: So, what do you think? Are southern governors slapping black folks in the face? Is this a color or racial issue? Are the southern governors color aroused? Did the highest-ranking black congressman go to far when he said opposition to the federal stimulus package by southern governors is a slap in the face of African-Americans ? Well, there is a history of southern governors doing bad things to black folks.

Of course we should trust Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi to do the right thing for blacks in Mississippi. Right!

But, then again what did the Congressional Black Caucus put in the Stimulus Plan to stimulate the economy in our black communities?

It's seems that all ethnic groups have been taken care of in the stimulus package but black folks. The Filipino Veterans were taken care of in Stimulus Bill. Native Americans received a well needed and deserved $2.5B for Native American tribes. I'm sure that President Obama’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Labor, Hilda Solis, will be vigilant in ensuring that Latinos are taken care of. The list of resources to ethnic groups is great. Now the question is.... What did Rep. James Clyburn and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus get for black communities? How many new schools will be built in "our communities" vs wealthy suburban communities or gentrified communities that have turn from black to white? OK, you want to talk about color, you want to really talk about color and race, like Atty General Eric Holder suggested, well let's really talk about it. Don't be scared...

African American Political Pundit is a regular contributor to this blog.

Black Girl Beat By Police For Riding Bike - Is this post racial?

Original Posted: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 at African American Political Pundit blog

Source: NewsOne.BlackPlanet

My man Casey Gane-McCalla over at Newsone.blackplanet.com is reporting on another attack on blacks, young and old throughout America by some out of control police. This time it's a beat down of a teenage black girl for riding-bike.

Police Beat Teenage Black Girl For Riding Bike

By Casey Gane-McCalla, Assistant Editor

In this video, police beat a teenage black girl for riding her bike on the sidewalk in Millvillle, PA. Apparently one of the officers, Carlos Drogo, maced himself while trying to take in the girl for riding her bike on the sidewalk and became angry and started punching her. More HERE

Black Girl Beat By Police For Riding Bike

The Post-Racial Myth, America still suffers from prejudice

The Post-Racial Myth
The Post-Racial Myth
Source: Harvard Crimson

By NAFEES A. SYED

When the Emancipation Proclamation was passed over a century ago, many Americans made the mistake of believing that color lines had been erased, blinding them to the harsh realities of the post-Civil War African-American experience. Now, as the first president with black heritage ascends to the White House, Americans are again quick to congratulate themselves for triumphing over prejudice. But, though Obama’s mixed background and encouragement of diversity are an essential first step in breaching racial divides, we should not be naïve enough to believe that racism no longer poses a problem in America.

Racial incidents still occur far too frequently. A few weeks ago, for example, my sister and a group of other middle-school students were on a school trip to Macon, Georgia. Their African-American bus driver parked in an almost-empty Dairy Queen parking lot so that the children could get something to eat. After everybody had made their purchases, the white manager of the restaurant came over to the bus and demanded that the bus driver move out of his parking lot, claiming he had not bought anything.

The bus driver and several of the children on the bus held up their DQ bags as evidence to the contrary, but the white manager still demanded that the black bus driver move; he then called the police, and the two white police officers who showed up enforced the manager’s demand. When the bus driver went to the policemen to protest the decision, he was arrested. It took the efforts of the trip’s white chaperones to convince the police that they needed the bus driver to take them back to Atlanta.

This blatant show of racism left an imprint on both the bus driver and the schoolchildren. That this event took place not in 1958, but in 2008, well after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and soon after the election of an African-American president, indicates how much work remains to be done in combating racial discrimination.

While an event like the one I mentioned is unlikely to occur in many parts of America—and perhaps if he lived somewhere else, the black bus driver would be quicker to take legal action for such treatment—there are unfortunately still several regions that linger in the pre-civil-rights era and have certainly not reached a post-racial state.

A brief look at the numbers makes this clear. According to a CBS News poll conducted earlier this year, three out of four Americans still believe that racism and sexism continue to be serious problems, and over six in ten African-Americans had recently heard a racist remark. A 2007 Department of Justice survey also found that blacks and Hispanics are more than twice as likely as whites to be searched, arrested, threatened, or subdued with force when stopped by police. The mere fact that an African-American was elected does not mean that there were people who specifically did not vote for him because of his race and that even those who did vote for him may experience racism in their daily interactions. Indeed, in some ways, diversity in America has even aggravated the problem: As the number of minority groups in America has increased, discrimination has been extended on a racial and religious basis to Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, and others.

Obama addressed these issues of race in America during his campaign, and he should not forget them as president. His administration has the power to heal such wounds in the form of much-needed legislation discouraging racism, institutional and otherwise—that of racial profiling, for instance. By formulating a diverse team, his administration can also set an example, encouraging diversity throughout businesses and institutions across America.

Obama’s election represents the overcoming of one significant hurdle to a post-racial America, but many obstacles remain. Only when we work together to eradicate all forms of prejudice from our society can we begin to contemplate a truly post-racial era.


Nafees A. Syed ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a government concentrator in Leverett House.

Post-Racial Era? Not at University of California

Post-Racial Era? Not at University of California [George Leef]

Source: national review.com

My Pope Center colleague Jay Schalin comments here on the decision of the UC regents to move full speed ahead with their plans to lower admissions standards so that UC schools can indulge in still more social engineering.

This won't improve the education of students in the least and will probably have a slightly negative effect as professors accommodate more students with weak academic backgrounds. But what does that matter? It makes UC officials feel good to think that they're improving society. More HERE

Is the race issue obsolete?

Back to the classroom: the continuing relevance of black history

By Eric Arnesen
Source: The Chicago Tribune

A week ago—just 12 days after the historic inauguration of Barack Obama—the country began its annual commemoration of Black History Month. Typically, the month is marked by specific public rituals: Public television airs documentaries on the African-American experience; schoolchildren read books about black heroes and inventors; newspapers run op-eds on how far we've come or how far we have yet to travel. And, invariably, snippets of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech fill the airwaves in tributes of remembrance. n Is this year different? What new spin does the election of the nation's first African-American president put on the history of racial inequality and progress? Do we even need a Black History Month?

Some conservative commentators will likely insist that we have entered a post-racial America, that Obama's election marks the culmination of a long struggle and the realization of the American promise.

Various liberal and leftist critics will charge that Obama's election changes little, that opponents of racial progress will use the fact of a black "first" to validate their claims that "race is over" and we'd all be better off simply moving on.

Both positions—left and right—underscore not the irrelevance of Black History Month but its importance. Or, rather, the importance of a Black History Month that puts...well, history first.

More HERE

Where do black web sites fit in a post-racial America?

By Brandon Whitney

Source: The Daily Voice

When visiting African American blogs online, I occasionally run across comments made by irate people who find the existence of sites that focus on black culture to be racist. There is a certain portion of the population that objects to any acknowledgment of African American culture. Their argument is that if we are to truly be one country, then race should never be a factor in any fashion. The existence of African American groups and, even separate acknowledgment of culture, are seen as reverse racism.

I think I grasp their arguments but find them lacking because what they are arguing for isn't a melding of two cultures that have evolved in the United States, but rather the complete elimination of African American culture and our assimilation into the mainstream.

Are black organizations racist?

There are several aspects to look at in the "Blacks are Racist" arguments. The first of which is race. Someone who is black is generally considered to be a person of African descent. There are about 700 million Africans who live on the continent. There are tens of millions of people of African descent in the New World. In Africa, there are many different cultures; this is true in the New World as well.

I state all this to make this point. Within the racial category of black, there are numerous different cultures, similar to how white encompasses many different cultures, even in the United States. Within the white population of America, southerners and northerners have different cultures. People of Irish, Polish, and Italian descent still cling to some aspects of their ancestral cultures. This basically means that when people attack the existence of African American organizations as inherently racist, they are simply viewing African Americans as members of a race and failing to see the culture that exists separately from their racial category. If a young white man or woman grows up in an African American environment and they "act black," they are not changing their racial category. They are assimilating into a preexisting culture.

Jewish societies exist in the United States, as do Italian-American groups, and Irish Americans as well. They are not accused of being racist or jingoistic, and neither should African American organizations. They are simply cultural organizations that either cater to certain aspects of the culture or address problems that disproportionally affect their constituency. Once we separate race -- a physical manifestation -- from culture, and mental manifestation, we can see why their existence is not inherently racist, and in some cases are necessary.

If one attacks the existence of African American organizations and groups, then one should just as aggressively attack Italian American, Irish American, and many other similar groups. This rarely happens because such groups cause little harm and simply add to the American cultural experience. African American groups are no different, save for the fact that much of African American culture developed as the result of harsh and bitter circumstances in the New World.

Are black media and web sites racist?

Is it still important to have African American news agencies? Are they necessary considering that a healthy number of African Americans work on network news? The answer is yes. In the modern age, when a relative goes missing, an African American does not call CBS or CNN; they email someone's blog. They do this because their missing relative is not usually considered newsworthy to the cable networks and network news broadcasts.

The African American media is not the news in Black face, or an attempt to pretend that Blacks have not made progress in the mainstream press. It reports news that would not otherwise be available, accept for the existence of the black media.

The television news is a money making businesses. Executives put what they think will garner ratings in order to get more commercial dollars. So when a young African American boy disappears, his story is not likely to get on the network news. It is not profitable. I even hesitate to call this racist because a white male or an unattractive white female is not likely to make the news either. The failure of the mainstream news to help find missing young African American people is just one of the ways in which it fails to share information with people who need it.

Rather than beg the media to change the way in which they cover news, the African American community has leaned on other sources to get important information out. When a historically African American university has financial trouble, black media spreads the word and helps mobilize people to save the school. When a child is missing, African American blogs and news agencies spread the word so that they can be found. These are more than just for-profit businesses; these are tools to improve the everyday living of people within, and without, the African American community. More HERE

Racial Politics No Longer an Excuse in Post-Racial America

Source: Cutting Edge

Racial Politics No Longer an Excuse in Post-Racial America

by Armstrong Williams

In case you didn't get the memo, this former slave-holding nation has just sworn in a guy with the name Obama as its 44th President. With this momentous occasion, all the –isms that were born from racism, reparations, and White guilt are now dead and buried.

No longer can liberal, race-based organizations and the race hustlers blame White men and a racist government going forward for their plight and lack of economic opportunities in America. The so-called label "I'm an African-American" is obsolete and you have officially become a full-blooded, card-carrying American. The attitude that "I don't belong to America," or "I'm not proud to be an American," is now laughable.

That old tired mantra, "The White man has his foot on my neck, I'm still overburdened from the effects of slavery" has finally been laid to rest. Well, the boogeyman exists no longer, and you must now rise and fall on your own merit, choices made, work ethics, discipline, sacrifices and thrift in this land of opportunity.

President Obama's historical election has caused a massive cry of promise and true opportunity not only from Americans but from the world. World leaders are watching as Obama pledges to "remake America." He stated, "The world has changed, and we must change with it" and expressed that more also is needed to be done in the Third World. After the inauguration, many children were interviewed and had such high expectations and now believe they can fulfill their dreams including becoming President of the United States of America.

People everywhere just seem excited, not only American Blacks, but college professors, students, senior citizens and everyday workers from Wal-Mart to Warner Brothers. People were inspired by his Presidential demeanor during his stirring inaugural address. His command of the English language, the carefulness with which he chose his Cabinet, all these things are bringing people the one thing that is necessary to survive a crisis: hope. Hope for change, hope for progress, and hope that when the dust settles there will be a better and more promising America.

Hope is wonderful, and a necessary ingredient for progress, but it is never enough. To achieve true progress, there is much work that is necessary, and it is not solely the job of the White House.

If Americans can take this charge they have gotten from President Obama to edify themselves and encourage one another we could see real progress.

If our young women can stop having babies out of wedlock, and respect themselves enough to wait until a man is willing to marry them to sleep with him, that would be progress.

If our young men can decide for themselves that this is their country and that they should respect it and themselves enough to get an education and do what they can to make this country and the world even better that would be progress.

If young people can stop the daily killings in the inner city, cease selling drugs and being tools of destruction in their homes and environment that would be progress. More HERE

Post -Racial

Source: The New Republic

Post-racial by Michael Crowley Even white supremacists don't hate Obama. Post Date Wednesday, March 12, 2008

David Duke was on the phone, talking about Barack Obama. Yes, that David Duke: After a query lodged at his website, the infamous ex-Klansman had responded via a mysterious e-mail address--he appeared in my inbox as "info45." (Duke regularly changes address to combat hate mail--the kind he doesn't like, that is.) Duke said he was traveling in Europe, where he often meets with fellow Holocaust deniers, and agreed to discuss the possibility that the United States might soon elect a black president.

Logo from an anti-Zionist website

Putting it mildly, one would not expect Duke to applaud this development. During Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, after all, Duke said Jackson's election "would be the greatest tragedy ever to befall this country." Warning that "the white majority in this country are losing their rights," Duke announced his own counter-candidacy, one whose main purpose seemed to be hounding Jackson.

Yet, far from railing at Obama's rise, Duke seems almost nonchalant about it. Self-described white nationalists like himself, he explained cordially, "don't see much difference in Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton--or, for that matter, John McCain." Sure, Duke considers Obama "a racist individual," citing his Afrocentric Chicago church. But soon the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People was critiquing Obama as overhyped and insubstantial in terms you might hear from, say, Clinton strategist Mark Penn. "They say he's for change. What change? He's become almost a cult figure. I don't see any shining light around Obama's head. I don't see any halos," Duke said.

Sure, we may not see David Duke strolling around with The Audacity of Hope under his arm any time soon. But his mild tone is still a curious reaction to what white supremacists have long considered a sign of racial apocalypse. "Does Race Still Matter?" asks the latest issue of US News & World Report, which features Obama on its cover. Undoubtedly, it does. But, thus far, Obama is largely delivering on his promise as a post-racial candidate--and hilariously confounding the worldview of white supremacists at the same time. More HERE

What is post-racial America?

Source: A view from the Right

The notion that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency will inaugurate a "post-racial" America, an America that has gone "beyond race" as Obama has put it, has been widely accepted, even by many conservatives. I'm not sure that anyone has ever explained what this post-racial condition of America would actually look like.

Presumably a post-racial, beyond-race America will be one in which no one thinks about race any more, an America in which we all just see each other as individuals. This is most puzzling, since I was not aware that Obama has called for the elimination of the vast system of race-conscious preferences for blacks and other nonwhite groups that is institutionalized at every level of our society. Currently, blacks and Hispanics are admitted to selective universities with grades and SATs for which virtually all white and Asian applicants are automatically rejected. Blacks and Hispanics are admitted to graduate schools with grades and test scores for which virtually all white and Asian applicants are automatically rejected. In the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision (see my article on it), the Supreme Court said that racial preferences for nonwhites were justified and mandated by the U.S. Constitution.

In every area of American life, from academic achievement to fire department examinations to grade school discipline to incarceration rates to bank loans and mortgages, blacks do much worse than whites, and their lack of success is seen as a moral stain on society calling forth ever renewed efforts to "close the racial gap." One of the most written-about gaps is that black high school seniors are on average four years behind whites in reading abilities. But what such a huge differential indicates is not that blacks simply "lag behind whites," a genial image that suggests a footrace in which the blacks cross the finish line just a little bit behind the whites; what it indicates is that the blacks are not even in the same event as the whites. And this is why, in every institution, parallel tracks for blacks have been set up where they are evaluated by much lower standards than those applied to whites. At the same time, to prevent whites from reacting against this massive racial favoritism for blacks, whites are required to attend "diversity sensitivity" sessions where they are told that they harbor conscious or unconscious racial stereotypes about blacks which are somehow responsible for the blacks being behind and which the whites must extricate from their psyches.

Will the elevation of Barack Obama to the presidency change any of this?

Of course not.

The post-racial America of which Obama's champions speak does not mean the end of racial preferences for nonwhites. It does not mean the end of constant accusations of white racism. It does not mean the end of the systematic cover-up of blacks' lower abilities, and of the fact that these lower abilities, not white racism, are the reason blacks are behind. It does not mean the end of the systematic cover up of the true facts of black-on-white crime. It does not mean the end of mandatory sensitivity training for whites. It does not mean the end of the belief that there is a moral cloud over America's entire history up until the civil rights movement--or, in the event Obama is elected, up until the election of Barack Obama.

If post-racial America does not mean the removal of these pro-nonwhite, anti-white policies and beliefs, what does it mean?

It means a post-white America, an America transformed by the symbolic removal of whiteness as the country's explicit or implicit historic and majority identity.

This is the consummation of which Obama's supporters dream.

In Obama's post-racial America, all the anti-white policies and attitudes, from affirmative action to open borders for Hispanics to the multicultural rewriting of history to endless compaigns against "white racial privilege," will remain in place. What will change is that whites will not protest these anti-white policies any more, will not mutter under their breath about them any more, will not even think about muttering under their breath about them any more. Instead, they will unreservedly embrace them, in the joy of racial unity and harmony.

Post-racial America is an America in which whites, as whites, go silent forever.

Source: A View From the Right

Not post-racial at the University of Florida Levin College of Law

It's not post-racial at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

Sherrie Russell-Brown, a former law professor at the University of Florida Levin College of LawDean Robert H. Jerry, the University of Florida and its board of trustees as defendants. has filed a racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit against the school and its dean. Her allegations could force the entire faculty to face discovery and a potential trial on actions taken against her and statements made in faculty meetings. She has named

Russell-Brown, an African-American, was passed over for tenure for what she alleges were racial reasons.

Among the allegations, Russell-Brown says that faculty objected to the selection of a black dean because alumni would not relate to an African American. She also says that one professor shoved her

from behind into a white board. She includes alleged references by one professor in class to “a gay Jew” and “a gay Buddhist.” She also says that a professor called one East Asian candidate “Deepak” even though that was not his name and allegedly referred to him being from “India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or whatever.”

Those types of allegations would need to be strengthened in discovery to make out a discrimination claim. She will need to show tolerance or even encouragement for such views. Dean Jerry’s response to past allegations will be central to this discovery. More HERE

Hate Crimes Against Blacks on the Rise

This is not the Post-Racial American Society that American media outlets have been saying we are in.

- Publisher, The Post Racial Blog

As reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center's HATE WATCH, SF Gate and this new Post-Racial Blog, Richmond, Calif. police have arrested seven white teenagers on suspicion of felony hate crime assault with a deadly weapon in the attack on a 24-year-old black man whose face was fractured by kicks and punches from assailants who called him a “coon.” Read full article

SF Gate reports: 7 East Bay teens arrested - hate crime alleged
Brandon Manning, seen eight days after he was beaten, has broken bones in his face. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle)

One minute he was hanging out with seven seemingly friendly guys in a park, the next he said he was on the ground, the blows coming from all sides, a fist or foot landing hard enough to fracture six bones in his face.

But it was the words accompanying the blows that made Manning, 24, think he was about to die.

"Coon." And then, "How do you like this, you f-ing n-?"

A week after the Jan. 24 incident, Richmond police officers arrested seven East Bay teenagers on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon - a hate crime investigation delayed five days because of a police clerical error.

The seven are white. Manning is black.

"I don't understand how somebody could do that in this day and age," Manning said Sunday. "I never, never thought it would happen to me."

Not in California and not in the East Bay, Manning said.

The arrest of the seven, including two juveniles, brought relief after nearly a week of anxiety, medical appointments - and especially deafening silence from the police department, Manning said.

The police report documenting the incident as an assault and identifying it as a possible hate crime sat unnoticed in the wrong in-box from the morning of Jan. 24 until Thursday, when Manning's mother showed up at the Richmond Police Department to ask about the case.

Hours later, Sgt. Lori Curran and a team of investigators got the paperwork. More HERE

It's interesting that there are so many cases of attacks on black men, women and children across America and it seems that none of the old school negro/colored organizations care. The national NAACP seems to be more concerned about holding Barack Obama accountable, when they could not even get the former President to attend any of thier events in 8 years, except for one time. I'm glad folks like the, Southern Poverty Law Center, Color of Change and the afrospear are stepping up to expose and organize against these crimes. I'm hopeful these groups get stronger, and can begin to really do the grassroot organizing our communities need and deserve.