Justice Sonia Sotomayor slammed a Texas prosecutor for a "racially charged" question.
The case comes from a drug arrest in Texas, when the defendant Bongani Charles Calhoun claimed he did not know the group of men that gave him a ride were going to commit a drug deal.
The prosecutor asked the defendant, "You've got African Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money. Does that tell you -- a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, 'This is a drug deal?"'
Justice Sotomayor along with Justice Stephen Breyer criticized the prosecutor and labeled his line of questioning as "pernicious in its attempt to substitute racial stereotypes for evidence, and racial prejudice for reason. It is deeply disappointing to see a representative of the United States resort to this base tactic more than a decade into the 21st century."
Although the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, Justice Sotomayor did not want the prosecutor's statement to go untouched.
Justice Sotomayor continued to state, "by suggesting that race should play a role in establishing a defendant's criminal intent, the prosecutor here tapped a deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice that has run through the history of criminal justice in our nation."
Sotomayor concluded, "I hope never to see a case like this again." And this, among many other reasons, is why we love Justice Sotomayor.
Read more here.
No, you are not seeing a picture from the 1950s. Yes, those are high school students dressed up as klansmen at a North Dakota hockey game. Athletic director of Fargo Public Schools Todd Olson said, "To be very honest, I think you're looking for something that is not there." Excuse me, sir? We all know what KKK robes look like and apparently, so do members of the Fargo student body. Read more about this mess here.
The commercial for The Rock's new movie, Snitch, caught our eye recently.
Not because we love to look at The Rock or because we think he's a great actor but mostly because of the movie's title.
Snitch. But what is the movie about anyway?
It's more than one of The Rock's usual action packed shoot em' up film. It has a message? What? A message you say?
"When a teenage boy is wrongfully arrested for distributing drugs and sentenced for a decade, the father makes a deal with the United States Attorney to become an undercover informant and infiltrate a drug cartel, risking his family and his life," the description says.
The writers and directors based the movie on a PBS Frontline documentary, which focused on how federal drug laws reward snitches with lighter prison sentences. Takepart.com and Participant Media are distributing the film.
See this great infographic from the movie's website, which features statistics about mandatory minimum drug sentences and how the federal government uses informants in drug busts, sometimes leading to the death of American citizens. It also focuses on the disproportionate impact of these laws on racial minorities.
Snitch hit theaters yesterday. We're probably not going out to see it but someone let us know if it's any good. We appreciate the effort and the message.
More here.
A Whole Foods in New York used a caricature of President Obama to advertise a one-day sale of whole organic chicken. Although the store removed the sign after receiving complaints that the advertisement was offensive, we still question their judgment.
Unfortunately, Whole Foods is not the first retailer to use a caricature of President Obama to sell chicken.
A subsidiary of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China, used the President's likeness to advertise "Obama's Fried Chicken."
Read more here.
A Michigan hospital consented to a father's request that "no black nurses" care for his newborn child. After the father saw Tonya Battle, a Black nurse, holding his child in the neonatal intensive care unit, the "concerned" father rolled up his sleeve, showed the staff his Swastika tattoo, and told the supervisor that he "did not want any African Americans taking care of his child."
When Tonya Battle returned to work the next day, the child had been assigned to a new nurse and she found a note on the assignment clipboard: Please No African American Nurses To Care For Baby Per Dad's Request. Thank You. No African American nurses were assigned to care for this child for the next month, until the hospital's lawyer informed management that the father's discriminatory request could no longer be granted.
Although your gut may tell you that this is a clear case of discrimination, the law is murky in this area where health law meets employment discrimination law. To put it simply, patients have the right to choose their type of health care including a choice of hospital or doctor. A patient can typically request a change in health care provider based on gender or religion. However, when Hurley Medical Center enforced the Swastika-wearing father's request and posted the sign about "no black nurses" it most likely violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race.
Not that we are in Michigan to participate in one of our Two Person Boycotts but really, Hurley Medical Center? Giving in to the wishes of a white supremacist? We will have none of it.
Read more here.
