Tag: racism
White woman calls cops on black man babysitting white kids
A white woman reportedly called the cops on a black man she saw babysitting two white children at a Georgia Walmart.
Corey Lewis, who runs a youth-mentoring program in Atlanta, used Facebook Live to film his interaction with a Cobb County police officer responding to the woman’s call about the girl and boy he was babysitting Sunday.
Lewis explained to the officer that he is the kids’ babysitter — that he’d taken them to eat dinner at the Subway in Walmart and then stopped to get some gas — which is when the woman, who’d been following them, approached.
The woman asked Lewis if she could speak to the girl, to see if she knew who he was — and he refused, Lewis recounted to the cop. That’s when she called the cops and then followed Lewis all the way home, he said.
“All because I got two kids in the back seat who do not look like me, this lady took it upon herself to say that she’s going to take my plate down and call the police,” Lewis said in another Facebook video. “It’s crazy … It’s 2018 and this is what I’ve got to deal with.”
The kids, a 10-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, confirmed to the officer that Lewis was their after-school teacher and babysitter.
Their parents, David Parker and Dana Mango, were shocked when they were called by the police to confirm the story, telling local outlet CBS46 that they believe Lewis was stalked and harassed for “babysitting while black.”
“I said, ‘Are you saying that because there’s an African American male driving my two white kids, that he was stopped and pulled over and questioned?’ and he said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s exactly what I’m saying,’” the mother told the station.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/10/white-woman-calls-cops-on-black-man-babysitting-white-kids/
‘Babysitting while black’: Woman calls police on male babysitter with white children
A black babysitter says a woman called the police on him while two white children were in his care.
On Sunday, while babysitting for the 10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son of his friends Dana Mango and David Parker, Corey Lewis of Marietta, Ga., treated the kids to lunch at a Subway inside Walmart. Afterward, the 27-year-old, who runs the youth mentoring program Inspired by Lewis, was standing with the kids outside his car while the boy finished eating when he noticed a white woman sitting in her car, staring.
“She pulled up alongside us and asked, ‘Are the kids OK?’” Lewis tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I answered, ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ She just smirked and drove off.”
The woman circled the parking lot and returned to Lewis’s car, saying, “Can I ask the little girl if she knows who you are?” and Lewis answered, “No, you cannot.” The woman then said, “OK, I will take down your license plate,” and left.
“I asked a few white witnesses if it looked suspicious that I was caring for two white children, and they said ‘Kind of,’” says Lewis. “But the kids were goofing around and eating, and there was no sign of danger.”
Lewis headed to a service station, and while he was pumping gas, he noticed the woman’s car again. Concerned about the children’s safety, he drove to his house, and when he arrived, so did the woman — and a police car.
“I didn’t do anything — the police is here now!” Lewis said in a Facebook Live video with more than 230K views. “I’m being followed and harassed.”
In the video, the officer, whom Lewis says was courteous, spoke to the children, who confirmed Lewis’s identity. “Two white kids being with one black male is suspicious,” Lewis scoffed in the video. “I work with kids every day.”
The officer called the children’s mom, who was aghast at the presumption of the 911 caller. “I thought it was a joke,” Mango tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I said, ‘Is it because there’s an African-American male driving my kids around?’ and the officer, who was embarrassed and apologetic, said, ‘It appears so.’”
A representative from the Cobb County Police Department did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment. The term babysitting while black is being used on Twitter to describe the incident.
Mango said the experience frightened her children. “My son said, ‘The woman followed us because we have peachy skin and Mr. Lewis has brown skin, and she thought he was kidnapping us.’ They were both fearful that Corey wouldn’t be able to babysit them anymore.”
Lewis, who works with a diverse set of children each day, tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “A black man with white children just didn’t look right in this woman’s eyes.”
Article via Yahoo.com
School superintendent on Texans star: ‘You can’t count on a black QB’
A school superintendent in Texas said he thought he was sending a private message when he wrote a public Facebook post blasting Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, stating, “you can’t count on a black quarterback.”
Lynn Redden, superintendent of the Onalaska Independent School District, made the comment in reference to the final play of the Texans’ 20-17 loss on Sunday to the Tennessee Titans during which Watson held onto the ball before completing a pass to receiver DeAndre Hopkins as time expired, leaving no time to try a last-second, game-tying field goal.
“That may have been the most inept quarterback decision I’ve seen in the NFL,” Redden wrote on a Facebook post promoting a Houston Chronicle story about the game. “When you need precision decision making you can’t count on a black quarterback.”
But Redden didn’t realize that the post was public. He later deleted his comment and told the Chronicle he wishes he never shared that sentiment.
“I totally regret it,” Redden told the newspaper.
Redden, who oversees 1,130 students and 175 staffers as the district’s superintendent, did not immediately return a message seeking comment from The Post early Tuesday. He had not faced any discipline in connection with the remark as of Monday afternoon but told the Chronicle he understands how people may consider it to be racist.
Redden said he was referring to the statistical success of black quarterbacks in the NFL.
“Over the history of the NFL, they have had limited success,” he told the newspaper.
Doug Williams in 1988 became the league’s first black quarterback to lead his team to a championship, taking the Washington Redskins over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. Williams, who started the season as a backup, was named the game’s MVP after completing 18-of-29 passes for 340 yards and four touchdowns.
More recently, in 2014, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson became the second black quarterback to win it all, beating the Denver Broncos 43-8 in his second season as a pro.
The eagle-eyed reader who caught Redden’s comment, meanwhile, said he hopes there are repercussions to follow.
“It’s important to make sure horrible words are met with consequences, especially for those in powerful positions with influence,” reader Matt Erickson told the newspaper.
Watson, for his part, said the Titans simply countered with “good coverage” during the game’s waning seconds, according to ESPN.
Asked if he should’ve thrown the ball away earlier, he said: “Of course.
“But while you’re playing … you can sit back and sit in your seats and say that I needed to throw the ball away,” Watson said. “But we tried to take a shot and we didn’t have any timeouts and they guarded the sideline very well. So my instincts took over and tried to get the ball and time ran out.”
Coach Bill O’Brien instead took most of the blame.
“We’re just trying to get it into field goal range and just trying to — we’ve got to do a better job of coaching that play up,” O’Brien told reporters.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/09/18/school-superintendent-on-texans-star-you-cant-count-on-a-black-qb/
‘Stand your ground’ shooter who shot unarmed black man has no regrets
The white Florida man who reignited the state’s “stand your ground” debate earlier this summer — when he fatally shot an unarmed black man who pushed him — says he would do it all over again if he had to.
“I’ve had plenty of time to think about it,” explained Michael Drejka in a jailhouse interview with WTSP-TV.
“As far as changing anything, as events…I don’t see, I really — no, not off the top of my head,” the 47-year-old said, after being asked whether he could think of anything he would’ve done different that day.
“I was very scared. I’ve never been confronted like that, or never been assaulted like that if you will — ever.”
Drejka, who is charged with manslaughter, is accused of fatally shooting 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton outside a convenience store in Clearwater, Fla., on July 19 after being pushed to the ground by him.
He initially went weeks without being arrested on account of the state’s controversial “stand your ground law” — which allows citizens to use deadly force when fearing “imminent death or great bodily harm.”
Asked how he felt after the cops “backed” him and “refused to arrest” him, Drejka said: “Vindicated.”
“I followed the law the way I felt the law was supposed to be followed,” he told WTSP. “I cleared every hurdle that that law had to, had to put in front of me.”
Drejka said he was “shocked” and “devastated” after learning of the State Attorney’s Office’s decision to file manslaughter charges last month.
“I didn’t hear about it until they were putting handcuffs on me,” the alleged killer explained.
He didn’t speak too much about the shooting itself, but did describe the moment he got pushed.
“Didn’t know it was a shove. It felt like I was tackled or someone hit me from behind with something,” Drejka said. “I left my feet and slid along the ground.”
Asked whether he was in fear for his life, Drejka told WTSP: “Yes sir. It was only one other person that was making a move and that move was towards me… I didn’t know what was coming for me and there’s only one way to look at that. You have to be scared for it, ’cause if you’re not, you’re wrong…And that’s that.”
Drejka claimed that he wasn’t racist, despite what others have said about him using the “N-word” in the past and getting into fights with black people at the very same gas station.
“I do not hate anybody,” he said. “I’ve worked with too many people, met too many people in my life to be that kind of person. There’s, there’s no way to survive really, by being like that. It doesn’t help anyone, you know, and to have a, that kind of feeling about an entire race of people seems foreign to me.”
Drejka told WTSP that one of his biggest “pet peeves” in life is the “abuse” of handicapped parking spots, which McGlockton was parked in on the day of the shooting. His girlfriend had been arguing with Drejka when McGlockton ran up and pushed him, surveillance footage shows.
“It’s always been a hotbed for me,” Drejka said, noting how his “high school sweetheart” was handicapped, as is his mother-in-law.
“My whole life has always been looking for a handicapped parking spot, and it’s always touched a nerve with me because of the way they’re abused and used.”
Despite having no remorse, Drejka apologized to McGlockton’s family at one point during the Friday interview — but admitted that it probably wouldn’t do any good.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s all I can really say to them and uh, thinking about it, would you accept those kind of words from someone, I don’t think I would. You know, just to, uh, I think there’s too much hate already to, uh, for me to be able to say anything that would make any kind of difference.”
Drejka is being held on $100,000 bond at the Pinellas County Jail. He is facing up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/09/03/stand-your-ground-shooter-who-shot-unarmed-black-man-has-no-regrets/
Hospital employee fired for calling doughnut shop worker the N-word in video
A Mississippi Baptist Medical Center employee has been fired after video of him calling a doughnut shop worker a racial slur multiple times went viral.
Kyle Thomas worked in the radiology department at the medical center in Flowood, Miss.
On Saturday, he visited the local Donut Palace in his full scrubs and he got into an altercation with shop employee Keaundrea Wardlaw.
According to Wardlaw, Thomas was upset about the service and the two began to argue.
In the video Wardlaw recorded, Thomas is heard telling Wardlaw, a black woman, to “shut her f–king mouth,” and then proceeds to call her the N-word multiple times.
Wardlaw responds by calling Thomas a “b—h“ and later follows Thomas out to his car, where she records his license plate number.
The video has since gone viral, pulling in thousands of negative reactions demanding Thomas be let go from his job.
In a now-deleted Facebook post, Thomas tried to defend his actions, writing, “I am so sorry, there is nothing I can say that will change what I said. I drove back up there and tried to apologize and she had gone. I regret every word that I said there is no excuse to ever say these horrible things. I only hope that by me sharing a public apology in this incident you could show me some grace. I was upset about another issue and it spilled over into this and I can’t apologize enough,” Yahoo Lifestyle reported.
Wardlaw confirmed to WJTV that Thomas came back to apologize to her boss for causing a scene, but did not apologize to her. According to WJTV, Wardlaw said she would have accepted an apology from Thomas.
However, Twitter users did not believe the apology.
Ayoka Pond, a spokesperson for the hospital, said in a statement to Fox News that Thomas’ actions do not represent the hospital and confirmed that he had been fired.
“We are aware of the confrontation captured on video involving one of our off-duty employees at a local donut shop. We take this situation very seriously. This employee’s language and behavior does not represent our organization’s values and his employment has been terminated.
“We want our patients, employees, physicians and our community to know that we find the language used in the video to be completely unacceptable and inconsistent with what we expect from employees or anyone associated with our organization. We are committed to a work environment that is inclusive and where everyone is respected and valued.”
The Donut Shop also released a statement announcing its zero-tolerance policy for racist behavior.
“I am extremely disappointed and disgusted at what took place this past Saturday. It was shocking and painful to watch this footage and imagine what Ms. Wardlaw must have felt at the time. Regardless of the grievances people have or anything that may have happened prior to this incident, no one deserves to be treated this way. We have zero tolerance for this type of behavior, and we will support Ms. Wardlaw in whatever action she chooses to take as a result,” the Donut Shop wrote on Facebook.
Wardlaw claims she did not want the man to be fired but felt Thomas should be held accountable for using the N-word, she told WJTV.
Angry driver follows black man home, repeatedly calls him the N-word *Video Here*
A state contractor from Ohio followed a black man to his home, posted up in front of his driveway and then called him the N-word repeatedly — all because he thought the man cut him off while driving.
“You wanna let me know how much of a n—er I am?” asks Charles Lovett, the black man being accosted.“I just want to let you know what a n—er you’re being,” the contractor says, with cellphone video showing the entire confrontation.
“Yeah, I want to let you personally know how much of a n—er you are,” the contractor fires back.
Questioned by Lovett as to why he is making this assessment, the man says: “Because you’re a rude n—er … You cut me off in my lane.”
He then adds, “You cut me off because you feel entitled — because you get everything for free.”
To which Lovett replies, “You feel entitled because I’m black.”
The contractor — identified by ABC 6 and FOX 28 as Jeffrey Whitman — is a white man from Columbus who owns a company called Uriah’s Heating and Cooling. He was driving a work van on Tuesday, which had the company’s logo and state contracting info on it, when the incident occurred.
“I’m glad I got all this information, that I’ll be sending to the state, since you’re a state contractor,” Lovett tells Whitman on the video.
He posted the footage on Facebook Tuesday, along with a description of what allegedly went down.
“So this is happened to me this morning,” Lovett said. “A man followed me from the interstate exit to my house, and then proceeded to berate me with the most disrespectful word to any African American. I wasn’t going to post it, because I felt that I should’ve known and did better in handling the situation, by just walking away and going into my house. But I’m human.”
The confrontation is just the latest example of racism caught on camera — with countless people getting recorded and losing their jobs in recent months.
“Nobody, African American Mexican Puerto Rican deserves what’s been happening to us across the United States here lately,” Lovett said. “This incident is just one of many sadly.”
Whitman has apologized for his racist rant, but he only did so after his company started getting blasted online. He was initially unapologetic.
“I didn’t follow him home,” Whitman claimed during an interview with NBC4.
“The way I confronted him, I confront him as ‘Hey, you cut me off,’” he said. “I don’t know if it makes it right or wrong, all I can say is I grew up with it and not a big deal for me.”
Lovett later filed a police report against Whitman, though it’s unclear if police plan to pursue charges. None had been filed as of 11 p.m. Wednesday.
“I never would have expected it to happen to me,” Lovett told NBC. “But [that’s] the world we live in nowadays.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/07/26/angry-driver-follows-black-man-home-repeatedly-calls-him-the-n-word/
Papa John’s founder said it was “a mistake” to resign after he used the n-word
It seemed like a reasonable consequence: After using the n-word during a conference call in part about racial sensitivity, John “Papa John” Schnatter was forced to step down as board chair of the pizza chain. But a new report from Julie Jargon at the Wall Street Journalsuggests that Schnatter doesn’t think he should have left his job last week.
The Wall Street Journal reviewed a letter to the directors in which Schnatter questioned the board’s request for him to resign. “The board asked me to step down as chairman without apparently doing any investigation. I agreed, though today I believe it was a mistake to do so,” he said. “I will not allow either my good name or the good name of the company I founded and love to be unfairly tainted.”
In his letter, Schnatter admitted to using the n-word. As he put it, he was asked if he was racist, and he said “no,” adding, “I then said something on the order of, Colonel Sanders used the word ‘N,’ (I actually used the word), that I would never use that word, and Papa John’s doesn’t use that word.” (As Barry Petchesky at Deadspin pointed out, it’s not clear why Schnatter is convinced that Colonel Sanders, of KFC fame, used the n-word; there’s no good evidence for it.)
The Papa John’s board, for its part, doesn’t seem convinced. It has now barred Schnatter from using office space at the pizza chain’s corporate headquarters, has told him to no longer make media appearances for Papa John’s, and plans to remove him from the company’s products.
This isn’t the first racial controversy for Schnatter; he had already resigned as Papa John’s CEO, but not chair, last year after blaming falling sales on the NFL’s inability to stop national anthem protests over systemic racism and police brutality. (Papa John’s was, but no longer is, the NFL’s official pizza.)
Read more via: Papa John’s founder said it was “a mistake” to resign after he used the n-word
Cops caught using coin-flip app to decide whether to arrest woman
A flip of a coin by Georgia cops determined a woman’s fate during a traffic stop in April, body camera footage showed.
The video showed Roswell police officers laughing as they used a coin-flip app to decide whether to detain Sarah Webb during a traffic stop, 11 Alive reported.
Officer Courtney Brown was heard asking Webb whether she knew how fast she was going. Webb apologized and said she was late for work, and Brown asked her to turn off the car and hand over her keys.
“The ground is wet and it’s been raining you’re going over 80 miles an hour on this type of a road. That’s reckless driving,” Brown said.
“I’m so sorry,” Webb replied.
Brown returned to her police cruiser to talk with fellow officers about whether to arrest Webb or just give her ticket.
“What do you think?” Kristee Wilson, a responding officer, was heard saying.
Brown said she “didn’t have speed detection,” but the other officer pointed out that the body camera recorded her cruiser’s speed, which would have shown how fast she was going to catch up to Webb.
Brown was then heard saying, “Hold on,” as she opens a coin-flip app on her phone. Wilson suggested that heads should mean arrest and tails should mean release. Brown agreee and flipped the coin in the app.
“A [arrest] head, R[release] tail,” Wilson said.
“OK,” Brown replied.
“This is tails, right?” Wilson asked.
“Yeah, so release?” Brown responded.
“23 [the police code for arrest],” Wilson replied.
“Michael Jordan?” Brown said while laughing. “All right, so I’ve got too fast for conditions, reckless…”
The officers decided to charge Webb with going too fast for conditions and reckless driving. Brown then arrested Webb, handcuffing her and putting her in the back of a patrol car. Webb was crying as she walked into the police cruiser. She called her employer to let her know of her arrest. Webb was not aware of the coin flip until 11 Alive obtained the video and informed her of the footage.
“Wow, these people put my freedom in the hands of a coin flip,” Webb told 11 Alive. “And that’s disgusting.”
The charges were dropped against Webb on Monday, and the case was dismissed.
Roswell Police Chief Rusty Grant told FOX 5 Atlanta that as he soon as he found out about the incident he started an internal investigation and put Brown and Wilson on paid administrative leave. He said he could not discuss details as the investigation was ongoing.
“I have much higher expectations of our police officers and I am appalled that any law enforcement officer would trivialize the decision-making process of something as important as the arrest of a person,” Grant said.
Webb said she would like to see the officers fired.
“I think they should be fired. I don’t think at all that they should be getting a paid vacation,” she said.
Article via: Cops caught using coin-flip app to decide whether to arrest woman
Emmett Till Murder Investigation Reopened 62 Years After Slaying
Emmett Till was a 14-year old boy who was brutally beaten and shot for allegedly making sexual advances against a white woman. The white women later confessed she lied.
Watch the 2017 update here:
Thankfully, federal authorities have reopened the lynching case of Emmett Till, a black teenager whose brutal murder in Mississippi in 1955 helped launch the modern civil rights movement.
The Department of Justice informed Congress in a report in March that it is reopening the case after “the discovery of new information,” which was not detailed. The decision was first reported on Thursday by The Associated Press.
A DOJ spokeswoman, reached by HuffPost in an email on Thursday, said it cannot provide further comment because it is an open investigation.
The department’s decision comes nearly 63 years after Till, a 14-year-old Chicago native, was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and shot after a white woman accused him of making sexual advances against her in a store in Money, Mississippi. Since his death, two white men acquitted of the crime confessed to his murder, and the woman recanted her allegations against him.
The horrifying case began in August 1955, when Till was abducted at gunpoint while staying with family near Money. Three days after he was taken in the night, his mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River with a cotton-gin fan tied to it with barbed wire for weight.
His mother, Mamie Bradley, insisted on having an open casket funeral for him so that the world could see the savagery done to him because of racial hatred.
Authorities charged two white men for his murder, Rob Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, after Bryant’s then-wife, 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, claimed that Till whistled at her, grabbed her and made sexual advances against her inside her husband’s store.
Both men were acquitted by an all-white jury. Years later in a paid magazine interview, they confessed to killing Till but were never retried. No one else was ever charged.
Milam and Bryant died in 1981 and 1994, respectively.
The case was closed in 2007, with authorities stating that there were no surviving suspects and the statute of limitations at that point precluded federal charges.
Last year the book The Blood of Emmett Till was published with a confession from Carolyn Bryant, today Carolyn Donham, that she lied under oath about her claims against Till. She confessed during an interview in 2008.
“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she was quoted as saying.
Donham today resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, and will turn 84 this month. A man who answered her door declined to comment to the AP on her behalf.
Civil rights activist the Rev. Jessie Jackson Sr. was among those reacting to the department’s decision on social media on Thursday by urging the passing of a bill that would make lynchings unlawful at the federal level as well as a hate crime.
Rev Jesse Jackson Sr
✔@RevJJackson
In memory of #EmmettTill and thousands of other black men, women & children lynched, we must finally pass anti-lynching law.
ABC 7 News – WJLA
✔@ABC7News
#BREAKING: Federal government reopens investigation into the 1955 slaying of black teen Emmett Till, a case that shocked the worldhttp://wjla.com/news/nation-world/government-reopens-probe-of-emmett-till-slaying …
Till’s cousin Deborah Watts, who co-founded the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, called the news “wonderful” when reached by the AP. She declined to comment further on the case.
“None of us wants to do anything that jeopardizes any investigation or impedes, but we are also very interested in justice being done,” she said.
We hope Emmett Till gets justice.
Article via: Emmett Till Murder Investigation Reopened 62 Years After Slaying
Papa John’s founder resigns as chairman after using a racial slur on a call
He was undergoing an exercise on how to handle controversial situations when he made the comment.
Papa John’s founder John Schnatter resigned as board chairman from the pizza company after he apologized for using a racial slur on a conference call that was set up to teach Schnatter how to not say offensive things.
This is the latest in the fallout for Schantter, who faced increasing pressure after he admitted using the n-word and described a scene of violence against African Americans on a conference call in May.
Forbes first reported the call, which was set up to help take Schnatter through a “role-playing exercise” to help him deal with racially sensitive situations. Schantter stepped down as CEO from Papa John’s last year, after he blamed NFL leadership for failing to stop anthem protests, which he said had driven down the chain’s sales.
Read more: Papa John’s Founder Drops N-Word During Sensitivity Training Call
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