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Republican state leaders threaten violence in “coming war” with Black Lives Matter

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Michael Brown, member of the Johnson Country commission

This week, two local Republican leaders published and then deleted social media posts which threatened violence in an imminent right-wing clash against Black Lives Matter and Antifa (anti-fascist) activists.

First, Iron County, Utah commissioner Paul Cozzens published a now-deleted picture showing a soldier with a gun and the words: “Warning to BLM & Antifa—Once you’ve managed to defund & eliminate the police, there’s nobody protecting you from us. Remember that.”

Cozzens later told Newsweek that he never supports violence against protestors but merely wanted to say that “If we defund the police, fathers and mothers will be forced to protect their families and properties which would descend us into anarchy.”

What Cozzens may not realize is that many Black Lives Matter and Antifa activists already believe that police do a terrible job protecting them from right-wing violence. Such activists have sometimes been subject to violence from the police themselves, bringing into doubt the whole question of whether police “protect” them from anything.

Second, Michael Brown — a Republican member of the Johnson County Commission in Kansas City, Missouri — published a now-deleted Facebook message in which he urged his followers to “buy a firearm and ammunition” for “the coming war” that is both “inevitable” and caused by left-wing police reform activists and Democratic leaders who are “silent” and “weak.”

“[This] isn’t a joke or hyperbole,” Brown wrote. “I’d rather fight and die than live in their dictated world.”

In response, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote on Twitter, “At a time when heated rhetoric rarely surprises me, I have to admit shock in seeing something like this from a local elected. Gross distortions; encouraging constituents to prepare for armed war w/political opponents? This is reckless. This is racist. This is wrong. Just stop.”

Brown later said that he had made the post in response to Monday reports of a gunman who opened fire on a parked sheriff’s squad car, killing two officers in Los Angeles. Brown said he was “speaking out against violence and calling on other electeds, community leaders and citizens to do the same.”

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'SOUNDS ABOUT WHITE'

Man Arrested After Video of Racist, Homophobic Christmas Eve Attack Goes Viral

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Jordan Douglas Krah, racist, homophobia, Asian-American, In-and-Out Burger, TikTok video

Californian police arrested a 40-year-old man named Jordan Douglas Krah after he was allegedly filmed on Christmas Eve directing racist and homophobic comments toward Asian-American diners who were eating at an In-N-Out Burger fast-food restaurant.

“You guys filming yourself eating?” The man believed to be Krah told the diners, Arine Kim and Elliot Ha, in the video. “You’re weird homosexuals.”

While the diners express disbelief at his comments, the man later returns to ask if the diners are Japanese or Korean. When Ha answers “Korean,” the man accuses the Ha of being “Kim Jung Un’s boyfriend,” referring to the Supreme Leader of North Korea, and asks whether the two have “had gay sex before.”

Ha humorously responds, “I wouldn’t go that far. We’re only on second base. He hasn’t taken me out to dinner yet.”

When Ha then comments about taking the stranger out, Kim asks him to stop. The stranger then says he could spit in Ha’s face.

The man later says, “I’m a slave master, you f*cking f*g,” and later adds, “See you outside in a minute… See you outside and what I can do to him,” meaning Ha.

In the video, Ha and Kim look startled at the seeming threat. Kim later said that the strange man then stood outside of the restaurant, staring at them through the window for nearly 10 minutes afterward.

@arinekim My friend and i were filming his reaction to my in-n-out order when this happened… #arinekim ♬ original sound – arine kim

The video of their interaction has been viewed over 13.8 million times on the video-sharing platform TikTok as of Tuesday, December 27. The video went viral and was shared on Twitter where it helped police identify and arrest the suspect.

In a follow-up video, Kim noted that the man had been arrested and that she and Ha are pressing hate crime charges against him for his insults and threats.

She noted that he was also charged by police in Danville, California for another incident involving him allegedly spitting and making racist remarks towards a Filipino family.

Kim said she didn’t expect anyone to take the incident very seriously because she grew up in a predominantly white community where she regularly experienced racist comments about Kim Jon Un and dog eating. She also said that, while she recorded her incident, tens of thousands of other people of color around the U.S. aren’t able to document or widely share their own experiences of racism and hostility from others.

Krah has been booked at the County Jail in Martinez, California.

 

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NYPD Commissioner Says MLK Day Racial Justice Protesters Wanted to “Destroy Our Way of Life”

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Martin Luther King, civil rights protesters, NYPD, racism, racial justice, Black Lives Matter

New York Police Department commissioner Dermot Shae has said that racial justice protesters who marched across the city on Martin Luther King Day were trying to “destroy our way of life.”

It was a curious way for a white policeman to characterize Black racial justice activists, to say the least, especially as the state Attorney General Letitia James is in the process of suing the NYPD for excessive force against racial justice demonstrators during the George Floyd protests during the summer of 2020.

On Martin Luther King Day 2021, the national holiday commemorating Black civil rights leader, NYPD officers arrested 29 protesters with a Black Liberation March for racial and social justice. The group marched from Brooklyn to City Hall.

Police claimed that protesters began lobbing bottles at a bystander recording the protests after police formed a protective ring around the bystander. Police also claimed that protesters tried to block traffic over one of the city’s roads and tried to spray graffiti. However, NY1 reports that video shows police officers arresting protesters at random.

“When you march from Brooklyn over a bridge, you try to shut down the traffic on the bridge. You’re bringing bottles. You’re bringing graffiti. You’re spray painting our city. This is our city. You’re spray painting to burn our city down,” Shea said. “This isn’t actions that are caused by police officers so that’s a news flash for the AG. This is actions caused by people that want to destroy our way of life and our city and we’re not going to let it happen.”

Isabelle Leyva, an NYC resident who recorded video of the police attacks (below) told NBC News a completely different story. She said that the police played an audio recording ordering the protesters to stop marching in the streets and then police began rushing anyone who dared step off of the sidewalk. She said police rushed protesters at least six times.

“At that point, a small group broke away from the crowd and was standing on the roadway a few feet off of the sidewalk,” Leyva said. “Riot police then charged the crowd and ran onto the sidewalk to beat and arrest people. [Police] continued this pattern for the rest of the night, grabbing anyone who stepped off of the sidewalk and then charging the entire group.”

Eleven officers received minor injuries and 21 protesters were charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, while seven received a desk appearance ticket.

Considering the long history of police using intimidation and force to beat back racial justice protesters, Shae’s characterization of protesters seeking to “destroy our way of life” is telling.

Researchers have said that the police’s tepid response to the white insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was quite permissive and friendly compared to the violent beatdown that Black Lives Matter protesters experienced at the same site the summer before—and it fits a larger pattern of police allowing white protesters to riot while stomping down on Black protesters who dare challenge police authority.

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'SOUNDS ABOUT WHITE'

GOP Lawmaker Says Black People Are Glad Their Ancestors Were Brought Over as Slaves

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Terry Jones

Terry Jones, a Republican lawmaker in North Dakota, has submitted a bill that would require state forms to list “American” as a racial choice option because he’s “disgusted” with how race is used by bad actors to divide the country, he says.

In trying to explain how his bill would unite Americans by focusing “on commonalities rather than differences,” he told the press that “citizens of all backgrounds are proud to be American,” adding that Black Americans are “glad their ancestors were brought here as slaves.”

InForum reports: “Jones said he believes in this sentiment because he read a Reader’s Digest article from the 1980s in which a Black doctor visited an African country during a period of civil conflict and made remarks about being grateful that his ancestors had been taken to America. Forum News Service’s attempts to find the article were unsuccessful.

Jones’ ignorant comment are just part of a long history of racist lawmakers saying that people of color should be grateful for their ill-treatment in this country just because it’s better than living in poorer nations — hardly an endorsement of great living under the American system.

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