"Not Counting Mexicans or Indians": The Many Tentacles of State Violence Against Black-Brown-Indigenous Communities

TruthOut: "They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds." - Popul Vuh

Between my eyes, I bear a scar in the shape of a "T" that I received on March 23, 1979, on the streets of East Los Angeles. It functions as a reminder that my skull was cracked, but more importantly, that I did not remain silent and that I won two police violence trials, for witnessing and photographing the brutal beating of a young man by perhaps a dozen sheriff's deputies.

These events are seared into my memory because of how I remember them. After coming back to consciousness, amid violent threats, I was handcuffed and left facedown on the cold street, bleeding profusely from my forehead. While in shock and unable to even lift my head, in my own pool of blood, amid flashing red and blue lights everywhere, I could see many dozens of officers giving chase and arresting everyone in sight. What I also witnessed in the reflection of my own blood was everything that I will relay here. Read more. 

Racism: Police Injustice in U.S. Leads to Even Greater Injustice (La Jornada, Mexico)

La Jornada (Translated by WorldMeetsUS): During protests over the Ferguson case, 323 people were arrested in Los Angeles and another 35 in Oakland. According to LA Police Department spokespeople, 130 were detained for disturbing public order on Hope and 60th Streets, after a group of protesters refused to obey an order to disperse.

The event was one of many that occurred over the past week in the wake of a grand jury decision exonerating a policeman who killed a young African American man, 18-year-old Michael Brown on August 9. Read more. 

U.S. to Continue Racial, Ethnic Profiling in Border Policy

NYTimes: The Obama administration will soon issue new rules curtailing the use of profiling, but federal agents will still be allowed to consider race and ethnicity when stopping people at airports, border crossings and immigration checkpoints, according to several government officials.

The new policy has been in the works for years and will replace decade-old rules that banned racial profiling for federal law enforcement, but with specific exemptions for national security and border investigations. Immigration enforcement has proved to be the most controversial aspect of the Obama administration’s revisions, and law enforcement officials succeeded in arguing that they should have more leeway in deciding whom to stop and question.  Read more.