Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr., the last survivor of the KKK members who bombed a Birmingham, Alabama, church in 1963, could be released from prison early.

Blanton, now 78, was convicted in May 2001 for participating in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four black girls — Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris. It was an act of white terrorism — one of many — in response to the desegregation of Alabama schools.

Blanton spent almost 40 years a free man after the attack, and then served 15 years in prison after the FBI arrested him and a jury found him guilty. The two other men who were convicted alongside him passed away in prison.

The president of the Birmingham NAACP said Blanton’s release would be “a travesty of justice.” The NAACP, family members of the victims, and other social and racial justice groups are urging the Alabama Parole Board to deny Blanton freedom. Organizations across the country have taken notice. Bread and Roses, a Massachusetts non-profit and social justice group, called on the public to join the protest:

For years, Blanton lived free while loved ones mourned and wondered if the people behind the bombing would ever pay for their heinous crime. Fifteen years in prison is not punishment enough for perpetrating a hate crime that cost four girls their lives. Tell the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to deny Thomas Blanton Jr. parole by contacting The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, PO Box 302405, Montgomery, Al 36130-2405, (334) 353-7771.

The board will hold a hearing on Wednesday, August 3, 2016, to decide Blanton’s fate.

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On Wednesday night, September 21, 2016, the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality in Kansas City reported that Donald Ebert, a police officer with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department wrote on Facebook of Terence Crutcher: “Should have dropped the entitlement card and listened the first time. Good shoot.”

A Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer shot and killed Crutcher, an unarmed black man, as he walked toward his vehicle. The police claim Crutcher refused to follow directions and that the officer feared Crutcher was trying to get to a weapon in his car.

Ebert wrote his comment on a CBS News post, a comment still up mid-Thursday. After being criticized by another Facebook user, Ebert slammed people with “kiss the babies and poor me syndrome” who don’t blame Crutcher for the lethal actions of the officer. “No one wants to take responsibility for their own actions they rather blame everyone else.”

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Letter to the KCPD

To the Kansas City Police Department:

I am writing this because black lives matter. And when I learned that one of your officers, Donald Ebert, praised the shooting of unarmed Terence Crutcher in Tulsa on social media, I was sickened. Ebert publicly declared that the death of Crutcher entailed a “good shoot” (good shot?) and that Crutcher held an “entitlement card,” or a feeling he didn’t need to follow police commands. The implication in all this, of course, is that Crutcher got exactly what he deserved.

Kansas Citians and people across the country will debate on whether the Tulsa officer shooting Crutcher was justified. But it would be nice if the people sworn to serve and protect Kansas City at least pretended like the death of a human being, regardless of circumstance, is a tragedy.

Even when a police officer is forced to kill someone who is trying to commit a senseless murder, it is a tragedy. Can we not be empathetic people? It’s a tragedy for the officer, who had to take a life and may suffer from PTSD as a result, as so many officers do. It’s a tragedy for the would-be-murderer’s family, for perhaps even he had a mother. Can we not ask caring questions, questions loved ones or friends might ask, like How did he get like this? What drove him to commit such evil acts? And it is a tragedy for the deceased, because though the officer was justified in his or her actions, the would-be-killer can never be redeemed, has no possibility to become the heartening story we all love to share on social media of someone on a troubled path who turned his life around and changed the world in a positive way. No, it may not usually happen. But at least when people live, when they live long enough to see justice in court or prison, there is a chance at being reborn.

And if that is heartbreaking, how much more so for people like Crutcher, an unarmed, nonviolent man with car trouble? Had Ebert shown sensitivity toward the loss of life and all the people it affected, I wouldn’t be writing this now. I believe that even people who disobey police commands or resist arrest have the right to life; Ebert clearly does not agree, but I believe as a thinking adult he is capable of expressing his opinion in a way respectful of the situation and respectful of the dead. Being flippant and praising the result is unacceptable.

KC needs officers that respect civilians. I request you fire this officer immediately.

Sincerely,

Garrett S. Griffin

On April 28, 2016, the Kansas City Royals tweeted an advertisement for the “Salute to the Negro Leagues Day” that featured five white people, possibly the most thoughtless advertising blunder in modern Kansas City history.

Somehow, someway, this ad made it through original concept discussion to the photoshoot to the design to approval and publication on social media without anyone suggesting it might make sense to include a black Kansas Citian. No, I will go farther. Is it not unbelievable — unforgivable — that the majority of the people in this ad are not African American? Who could say otherwise, when the league this day is supposed to honor was an effect of and a refuge against a white supremacist society that legally oppressed and openly tortured and murdered black people?

And how is it that one wouldn’t automatically think to feature blacks, Hispanics, and other nonwhites even if this ad wasn’t for Negro Leagues Day? Are there not also black and brown people coming to each Royals game? Is it not also a multicultural team?

Of course, I give the benefit of the doubt to the creators. I assume this was done without racist intent, and I feel most sensible Kansas Citians would agree (and will be delighted they fixed their mistake and created a more diverse ad). Had anyone had the wit to realize what a horrific P.R. mistake they were making, this whitewashed image would have been buried forever. Rather, this is a testament to white insensitivity. It is a testament to how far to the back blacks remain in our white minds. It is likely an example of subconscious anti-black bias that awards little importance to black people, their feelings, or their interests. According to an ingrained racial preference, the important fans are white fans. The important people to advertise to are white people.

(Just so no reader thinks I am speaking out of turn, all the Marketing and Promotions professionals, including the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, listed on the team website are white, as a simple social media search reveals. Of course, if there had been nonwhites on staff this ad would still be thoughtless and inappropriate.)

This is an incident that should be highly revealing to those that believe racist thought is a thing of the past and that we whites have nothing left to work on. (Those ideas are nothing new, of course: in 1962-1963, 60% of whites thought blacks were treated equally and 85% of whites thought black kids had the same opportunities as white kids to receive a high-quality education.) To anyone who understands that racism can be measured scientifically, and that conscious and unconscious racist sentiment still exists and leaves blacks disadvantaged in serious ways in our city and our country (therefore making whites, divorced from the very possibility of such mistreatment, quite privileged indeed), the implications of this event are obvious:

If whites are so oblivious that they do not even notice they are advertising a day that honors the likes of Buck O’Neil and Satchel Paige with an all-white cast, what else might they be oblivious about?

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Beyoncé and her dancers, clad in black leather and black berets, their hair Afroed, reminded the world as it watched Super Bowl 50 of the Black Panthers, a radical leftist organization birthed in the 1960s by white American oppression.

Beyoncé and her dancers stood together on the football field and raised their fists in the traditional radical symbol “power to the people,” a sign of both solidarity with allies pushing for positive social change and defiance against oppressors.

After the performance, a group of dancers raised their fists once more. One unfolded a piece of paper inscribed with “Justice 4 Mario Woods.” Woods, reportedly armed with a knife, was shot to death in a heated confrontation with both black and white San Francisco police in December. Super Bowl 50 was held in San Francisco.

The performers also posed for a similar photo hailing Black Power off the field after the show.

The halftime performance came one day after Beyoncé’s music video “Formation” came out, which drew fire from angry whites for its “anti-police” message. In the video, Beyoncé sits atop a sinking police cruiser, a black child dances in front of a line of policemen in riot gear, who eventually raise their hands, graffiti on a wall demands police “Stop Shooting Us,” etc. “Formation” was one of the songs performed during the Super Bowl.

The Black Panther Party, founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, was largely inspired by the ideology of Islamic minister Malcolm X (Beyoncé and her women formed an “X” at one point, likely a reference to him). Malcolm X summed up his view on violence, in accordance with his faith and belief in self-defense, when he said in 1963, “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”

Formed in 1966, the year after Malcolm X’s assassination, the Panthers aimed to promote self-defense against police abuse and white vigilantes, to unify workers against capitalist exploitation, to embrace black pride, to make African Americans politically powerful and economically self-sufficient, to end illiteracy, hunger, and poverty in black communities, and to fight and die at any time for freedom.

Marxist ideas of transferring power to the common people–giving black people the economic, social, and political power to control their own destinies–attracted many. So did the idea of revolution, violent conflict, as a way to achieve basic human rights.

It was, after all, a time of virulent racism (it should be obvious to all that blacks faced far more severe and deadly oppression than the American colonists who rose up in revolution against the British).

White employers refused to pay blacks the same wages as whites, or hire them for more skilled, higher wage positions; white banks refused to provide home loans to blacks; school districts gerrymandered attendance zones to keep black and white schools distinct; white businesses fled from budding areas of black commerce; white producers charged black stores more for goods.

White residents fled from black neighbors; white real estate agents steered blacks away from nicer homes in white areas; white city councils, city planners, and developers refused to invest and build in black areas; white voters rejected tax increases that would benefit black schools and neighborhoods; white landlords refused to properly maintain property inhabited by black families.

White policemen beat and abused blacks suspected of committing crimes against whites, but ignored black on black crime in the ghettos; white judges and juries handed black criminals longer prison sentences and more frequent executions; white terrorists shot, hung, beat, mutilated and bombed innocent African Americans to keep them out of stores, schools, public facilities, neighborhoods, voting booths, and political positions.

Peaceful protesters exercising First Amendment rights were attacked and killed by police and vigilantes alike. The Black Panther Party and its message of self-protection appealed to those who saw Dr. King’s pacifism as inadequate (while respecting and upholding Dr. King’s belief in socialism).

So the Panthers made use of their Second Amendment rights: they armed themselves against a government that failed–for centuries–to protect their human rights, and in fact frequently worked to destroy said rights. They decided to defend themselves, especially against abusive policemen, whom they called “pigs.”

The Panthers used (what else?) the Declaration of Independence to justify revolution against the State. In their Ten-Point Program, which outlined their demands (the first being “We Want Freedom”), the Panthers reminded blacks and whites alike:

…governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government…

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations…evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Yet the Party was more than organizing for self-defense and revolution. Nationally, the Party was renowned for organizing dozens of community programs such as free clothing, shoes, food, education, legal representation, and health clinics for communities of color. They worked with welfare organizations, churches, and local businesses (some white) to ease black poverty.

They organized black history classes, including some that introduced whites to the horrors of slavery and oppression; this glimpse of true history left many whites terrified, tearful, and angry enough to join the fight for civil rights. They held rallies, marches, and strikes to push for black equality.

And although Panther women faced frequent sexual pressure and advances from the men, and sexism in general, the Party aimed to liberate women and promote equality—it was “empowering,” a “source of pride” and “strength,” in the words of one female Black Panther leader.

By the early 1980s, the Black Panther Party was destroyed. From the outset, the U.S. government and local authorities worked to undermine and eliminate it.

The FBI, which has a long history of working to destroy leftist and civil rights organizations (the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, etc.), installed spies, helped assassinate Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago, forged letters to create disunity, illegally imprisoned activists, destroyed property like food meant for distribution to the poor, and attempted to discredit the Party through propaganda. The FBI authorized municipal police to terrorize members at home, at meetings, and at protests.

When Bobby Seale was arrested for protesting at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, he was not allowed to choose his own lawyer—he was gagged and bound in the courtroom. Many Party leaders were forced to flee the United States to avoid death or imprisonment.

The Panthers’ deadly clashes with police also lost them support from more moderate black civil rights groups and more affluent blacks, and of course progress in civil rights legislation also convinced some their promised revolution was no longer necessary.

(See Reynaldo Anderson, On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities Across America; Gaidi Faraj, Unearthing the Underground: A Study of Radical Activism in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army; Paul Alkebulan, Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party.)

Today, with the rise of more radical movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, Beyoncé’s homage to the Panthers should come as no surprise. It is a time of immense anger toward the State and white-dominant society.

Research shows nearly all whites hold subconscious anti-black biases, and a solid majority consciously believe racist myths about blacks (whites in simulations are much quicker to shoot both armed and unarmed blacks). Black job applicants with identical resumes as white applicants are still less likely to be called back for an interview, and blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care at the same facilities than blacks with identical diagnoses and medical histories.

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are consistently twice as likely to be black than white.

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