Stand in Solidarity with Prof. Gates! Say NO to Racism!

Stop Racial Profiling and Police Brutality!

Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Was Right!

The Cambridge Cops Must Apologize!

Youth Need Jobs & Schools - Not Jails!

Demand a Justice Department Investigation
of Racial Profiling Across the US

Sign the Online Petition here. Let President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick, Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders and members of the media know you stand against racism with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and you want the Obama administration to launch a national investigation into racial profiling and police brutality NOW!
http://www.bailoutpeople.org/gatespetition.shtml

The arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a Cambridge police officer after showing two forms of identification after he, along with a Black limo driver, had unjammed the lock to the front door of Gates' own house in a predominantly white, upscale neighborhood known as "Harvard Square" has brought the struggle against racism to the front pages of newspapers throughout the US and around the world.

The Cambridge Police Department and their racist allies have worked overtime to slander and vilify Prof. Gates. But his only crime was in fact to resist the racist arrogance of the Cambridge Police and not acquiesce to their racist and unjust treatment of him. The torrent of racist vitriol targeting Prof. Gates as well as the absolute racist arrogance displayed by the Cambridge Police Department in demanding that Pres. Obama and Gov. Patrick apologize for expressing support for Prof. Gates, cannot go unanswered! It is time for all poor and working people, and particularly whites, to come out against these racist attacks and stand foursquare in 100% solidarity with Professor Gates and against racial profiling and police brutality.

Cambridge, Harvard University and Boston are seen around the world as bastions of liberalism, hotbeds of progressive ideas and prestigious places from which cutting-edge research emanates. But the racial profiling and arrest of Prof. Gates have re-raised the question of how much has changed since the 1970s when, in the wake of court-ordered busing for desegregation, white racist mobs were stoning buses carrying Black school children and attacking Black people on the streets and in their homes.

Gates was Right! The Cambridge Police Department was Wrong!

Racial profiling is another expression of institutionalized racism. In the U.S., racial profiling and police brutality have become an unfortunate reality of life for people of color, especially youth. It doesn't matter whether it occurs in the inner city, a small town, or an upper-middle class suburb.

In a 2004 report entitled "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security and Human Rights in the United States," Amnesty International documented that in a year-long investigation, an estimated 32 million people had been racially profiled--the vast majority of them from nationally oppressed groups. One can only imagine how much these numbers have increased over the last five years, not only for those born in the U.S. but also for immigrants. Since 9/11 there has been a corresponding increase in racial profiling targeting the Arab and Muslim communities.

The police have been, by far, the most feared perpetrators of racial profiling, and understandably so. Police harassment and brutality is an epidemic. According to a 2008 report by the Washington, D.C. based Campaign for Youth Justice entitled ”Critical Condition: African American Youth in the Justice System” African American youth make up 30 percent of youth arrested while they represent only 17 percent of the overall youth population. Additionally, African American youth are 62 percent of the total number of youth prosecuted in the adult criminal system and are nine times more likely than white youth to receive an adult prison sentence.

One only needs to remember how the Somerville 5 (5 Black youth from Somerville who were arrested on racist frame up charges by the Medford Police) or the Jena 6 were treated. Not to mention the racism that followed the devastation of the 9th Ward in New Orleans as a result of hurricane Katrina.

As the economic crisis deepens the ruling class will use all means at its disposal to foster artificial divisions between white workers and Black, Latina/o, and immigrant workers. It is our responsibility to build a movement based on anti-racist, class-wide solidarity--as workers of all nationalities are losing their jobs, homes, health care and pensions in rapid numbers; and as the economic crisis becomes even more extreme.

Text of online petition:

To: President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick, Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders and members of the media

I deplore the racist treatment of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by the Cambridge police on July 16. Professor Gates was arrested simply for being in his own home and insisting on his right to have the name and badge number of the arresting officer, rather than standing silent in the face of blatant racist injustice inside his own home. I demand an immediate apology to Professor Gates from the Cambridge Police.

The Gates affair throws a bright national spotlight on the reality of racial profiling and police brutality in the United States, as Professor Gates himself said at the time of the incident. President Obama acknowledged this in his comments on it at his national press conference.

I call on all justice-loving people to stand in 100% solidarity with Professor Gates and against racial profiling and police brutality, and to stand up against the barrage of right-wing hate spewing forth from law enforcement and police unions and fanned by news media outlets and commentators, having the arrogance to demand that President Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick apologize for supporting Prof. Gates and speaking the truth.

I further demand that the Justice Department take up an immediate robust investigation of racial profiling and police brutality nationwide, and bring perpetrating police officers to justice and withdraw funds from police departments which practice racial profiling and police brutality. What happened to Professor Gates is not an individual incident. Racial profiling and police brutality must be dealt with in a serious and systematic way.

Sincerely,
(your signature appended here).

Bail Out The People Movement
Boston
617-522-6626
bopmboston@gmail.com
http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com

National Office
212-633-6646
bailoutpeople@safewebmail.com
http://www.BailOutPeople.org

Boston Cop, NYC Aide Under Fire Over Gates Remarks

FOXNews.com, July 30, 2009

A Boston police officer has been suspended and could be fired for a mass e-mail in which he used a racial slur to describe black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Commissioner Edward Davis put 36-year-old Justin Barrett on administrative leave pending a termination hearing after learning of the slur.

Click here for photos.

A person with knowledge of the case who was not authorized to speak publicly about the details told the Boston Herald that Barrett, a member of the National Guard, sent the e-mail to fellow Guardsmen and to The Boston Globe.

Barrett called Gates a "jungle monkey" in the e-mail, according to a copy posted online at MyFOXBoston.com. Officials told the Herald that Barrett admitted writing the e-mail.

WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT: Click here to read the e-mail.

The new controversy in Boston comes on the heels of the media frenzy over Gates' July 16 arrest in his Cambridge home on a charge of disorderly conduct by a white police officer. Police were responding to a report of a possible burglary.

The charge later was dropped, but the case sparked a national debate on racial profiling, with even President Obama weighing in.

Barrett and the police union did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the disciplinary case in Boston. He has no previous disciplinary history in his two years with the department, the Herald reported.

Meanwhile, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, a Democrat, accepted the resignation of Lee Landor, his deputy press secretary, after she called Gates a racist and referred to President Barack Obama as "O-dumb-a."

Landor's comments on the social networking site Facebook were inappropriate, Stringer said in a statement.

Landor defended her entries, but added: "It is understandable that a black man encountering police will be suspicious of racial profiling, based on the long history of racism in this country."

Peace activist Sheehan comes to the area Monday

Belmont Citizen-Herald, June 26, 2009

Arlington, Mass. - Cindy Sheehan, who became America’s most outspoken peace activist when she staged a protest at former President George Bush’s Texas ranch following the death of her son, Casey, in Iraq in 2004, will appear at Arlington’s Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St., on Monday, June 29, at 7:30 p.m.

The Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Chapter 9, of Veterans For Peace, is sponsoring the free event. Co-sponsors of the event include Military Families Speak Out, 9/11 Truth, Citizens for an Informed Community, and Boston-area United for Justice with Peace, which includes Arlington/Lexington UJP.

Sheehan’s topic will be the title of her latest book, "Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution."

“We in Veterans for Peace and our other co-sponsors are thrilled to bring Cindy to Boston,” said Nate Goldshlag, Coordinator of the Smedley D. Butler Brigade. “Cindy’s message today is just as important as it was when she set up her protest camp in Crawford, Texas.”

Sheehan’s antiwar activism began after her son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in April 2004. After the death of her son, Sheehan listened to then President George W. Bush telling the nation that those killed in Iraq died for a “noble cause.” Sheehan had a simple and direct question for George W. Bush: “What noble cause did my son die for?”

She took her question to President Bush while he was vacationing in August 2005, and created a makeshift camp by the side of the road near Bush's Crawford Ranch. Soon afterward, the media began referring to her camp as “Camp Casey” and to Sheehan as “Peace Mom”. Over the next few weeks, thousands of supporters, including members of Congress, notable actors and singers, and civil rights activists, visited Camp Casey.

Sheehan became known throughout the world for her courage and direct action. She has continued her activities in the U.S. and abroad, appeared on numerous political programs on TV, and wrote Dear President Bush, about civil disobedience, her son’s death, and her transformation into the US’s most outspoken advocate for peace; "Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through Heartache to Activism, her memoir; and Not One More Mother’s Child."

In May, 2007, Sheehan officially left the Democratic Party after the Democratic-controlled Congress authorized the continued funding for the war in Iraq, and resigned as the “face” of the antiwar movement, saying she wanted to go home and be a mother to her other children. In a farewell message, she said that she felt that for so little in return she had sacrificed her health, her husband, and her life savings.

Sheehan later returned to the antiwar fray, and soon announced that she would run for Congress in 2008 as an independent against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She ran on a very progressive platform, but came in a distant second to Pelosi in the election in 2008, but ahead of the Republican candidate. She has continued her antiwar activities. She is credited with having revived the antiwar effort, and providing a name and face for the peace and justice movement. Since then, her peace activities have literally taken over her life. Sheehan was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 and has received many peace awards from all over the world.

Co-sponsors of the event include Military Families Speak Out, 9/11 Truth, Citizens for an Informed Community, and Boston-area United for Justice with Peace which includes Arlington/Lexington UJP.

The Smedley D. Butler Brigade Chapter 9 of Veterans For Peace was established in the mid-1980s and includes more than 100 veterans from the Boston area who are involved in antiwar activities. The local chapter is part of the national Veterans For Peace and is named in honor of Marine Gen. Smedley D. Butler, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history, who turned against war and famously said “War is a racket. A few profit, the many pay.”