Discrimination is the negative treatment of one individual or group by another individual or group based upon some characteristic of that group, such as gender, race or ethnicity, or age because of a belief that the characteristic justifies such negative treatment. Institutional discrimination occurs when that negative or unfair treatment takes place at or is performed by an institution as a result not of individual belief but as a result of the structure, organization, or practices of that institution.

The Economic Devastation Fueling The Anger In Baltimore

The protesters’ anger was fueled, at least in large part, by the Baltimore police department’s long history of ugly violence against the city’s residents and a pattern of officers facing few, if any, repercussions. But the protests also take place in the context of a city that has been ravaged economically, most recently by the foreclosure crisis and predatory lending.

'Structural Looting' of Black Communities Driving Protesters to Baltimore Streets

As people across Baltimore prepare for another day of mobilizations to demand justice for the late Freddie Gray, voices from the city's grassroots are calling for broader U.S. society to dig beneath the police and media spin of "looting" and "protester violence" and listen to expressions of outrage and demands for deep change emanating from the streets.

"The systemic oppression we're seeing is the result of decades of people ignoring the cries of black people in Baltimore," Adam Jackson of the Baltimore-based grassroots organization and think tank Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle told Common Dreams over the phone. "People are moralizing about trash cans getting burned. But you should moralize on why black people are being killed by police. Talk about structural oppression."

MARYLAND LEGISLATOR DISCUSSES TAKING FOOD STAMPS FROM PARENTS OF PROTESTING YOUTH

Maryland State legislator Patrick McDonough, the guest host of a drive-time radio program on Wednesday morning, discussed the possibility of revoking food stamps from the parents of protesting Baltimore youth.

Later during the same broadcast, McDonough called for a “scientific study” of what he called the “thug nation” in the black community. McDounough is a Republican member of the state’s House of Delegates who represents a suburban area northeast of the city.

Governments and police departments are run by social networks, commonly known as "good ole boy networks". These networks rig the system to their own advantage. It is an abomination that police forces can suffocate a community with heavy handed policing practices.

Structural and Institutional Racism Exists Within Police Forces

The Ferguson grand jury operated in an unorthodox way in the Darren Wilson case: The prosecutor, Robert McCullough, presented all the evidence and then took a hands-off approach designed to shift responsibility for securing an indictment from himself – the government – to a group of citizens. That’s not a legal failure, that’s politics.

And it isn’t a few bad apples on police forces, it’s the way that officers are trained to see communities of color as war zones and to behave like occupiers.
Police officers are so rarely held accountable for killing even unarmed black and brown people, that no one was really surprised at the outcome this time. People have lost faith in the system, which repeatedly tells them black lives don’t matter.

Police perpetuate violence with impunity. The legal system protects their malfeasance.

Nonviolence as Compliance

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

Baltimore and the Human Right to Resistance: Rejecting the Framework of the Oppressor

Anti-Black racism, always just beneath the surface of polite racial discourse in the U.S., has exploded in reaction to the resistance of black youth to another brutal murder by the agents of this racist, settler-colonialist state. With the resistance, the focus shifted from the brutal murder of Freddie Gray and the systematic state violence that historically has been deployed to control and contain the black population in the colonized urban zones of North America, to the forms of resistance by African Americans to the trauma of ongoing state violence.

The narrative being advanced by corporate media spokespeople gives the impression that the resistance has no rational basis. The impression being established is that this is just another manifestation of the irrationality of non-European people—in particular, Black people—and how they are prone to violence. This is the classic colonial projection employed by all white supremacist settler states, from the U.S., to South Africa and Israel.

Are our inner cities approaching the breaking point? Has constant harassment and mistreatment put communities on edge?

POLICE MILITARIZATION

The images on the news of police wearing helmets and masks, toting assault rifles, and riding in mine-resistant armored vehicles are not isolated incidents—they represent a nationwide trend of police militarization. Federal programs providing surplus military equipment, along with departments’ own purchases, have outfitted officers with firepower that is often far beyond what is necessary for their jobs as protectors of their communities. Sending a heavily armed team of officers to perform “normal” police work can dangerously escalate situations that need never have involved violence. Yet the ACLU’s recent report on police militarization, “War Comes Home,” found that SWAT teams, which were originally devised as special responders for emergency situations, are deployed for drug searches more than they are for all other purposes

Why does the government constantly respond with military intimidation tactics? Are we living with a creeping form of martial law?

You’d be surprised who the outside agitators in Baltimore really are

On Monday, the country watched as a band of outside agitators descended on the streets of Baltimore, attacked locals with blunt force, intimidated innocent bystanders, and even threw rocks at native residents. Every day, these gun-toting rogues come from as far as New Jersey and Pennsylvania to intimidate the good people of Baltimore, forcing communities to cower under the threat of violence. The agitators are known for their menacing dark blue garb, hostile behavior and gangland-style codes of secrecy and silence. Though many of these ruffians have attempted to conceal their identities from their victims, they can be easily spotted by the badges that signify membership in the widely feared Baltimore Police Department.

According to data posted on the city of Baltimore’s OpenBaltimore website in 2012, over 70 percent of Baltimore Police Department officers live outside city limits, with at least 10 percent living over state lines, in places as far away as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By contrast, almost all of those arrested in ongoing protests sparked by the police killing of the unarmed Baltimorean Freddie Gray reside firmly within the city. These facts were apparently lost on Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake when she blamed “outside forces” for all the looting of local businesses and attacks on cops. Similarly, the Baltimore Police Department claimed that “outside agitators continue to be the instigators behind acts of violence and destruction,” even as it conceded in the same statement that “the vast majority of arrests reflect local residency.” No evidence of outside agitation was produced by the mayor or the police, and none was demanded by much of the media covering the ongoing troubles.

So, the Baltimore police do not have a vested interest in a healthy community?

Freddie Gray arrest witness accuses police of intimidation

Ater Baltimore officials appealed for help in the Freddie Gray investigation, police released a photo of a witness to the arrest and asked him to come forward.

Kevin Moore, 30, said Saturday that he is the man pictured in the photo, but he is angry about the release. The West Baltimore man — who captured part of the arrest on a cellphone video — said he believes police released the photo to intimidate him.

"What is so important that you have to plaster my picture over the Internet? I've already spoken," Moore said, adding that he had talked to internal investigators in the Police Department. "How do you not know that picture is me?"

Where are the reasonable voices? No political leaders have reigned in the systemic mistreatment of the community.

Playing Tough: Baltimore's So-Called Justice System Takes Revenge On Those Questioning Its So-Called Justice

Ruthlessly wielding its power over those who dared to take to the streets to challenge it, Baltimore judges and other law enforcement officials have come down insanely hard on protesters, suspending habeus corpus to prolong holding uncharged suspects, setting wildly excessive bail amounts - $500,000 for the 18-year-old kid widely seen smashing the state in the form of a cop car, and disappearing at least one peaceful activist, on live TV yet - abuses that in fact help shine a spotlight on the venal, broken system that sparked it all.

Maryland’s new GOP Gov. Larry Hogan quickly set the tone for the city's punishment phase when he effectively suspended the state’s habeas corpus law, which limits detention without charge to 24 hours, in a legally questionable move he said was “necessary to protect the public safety” - thus providing a handy mantra for the abuses that followed. Most of the over 230 people picked up in the streets had been languishing in jail in reportedly harsh conditions - overcrowded, no food - without charges or police reports to explain why they were there. The backlog was made worse by the inexplicable closing of three of four district courts for no apparent reason. On Thursday, legal pressure forced the release of over 100 suspects, about half of those held. Officials were unrepentant: A top cop defended the "legal arrests for acts of violence," and a top jail official insisted he was "not aware of any problems whatsoever."

Know the Facts About Capital Punishment

Capital punishment does not work. There is a wealth of mounting evidence that proves this fact.

The death penalty, both in the U.S. and around the world, is discriminatory and is used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities. Since humans are fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.

Furthermore, the astronomical costs associated with putting a person on death row – including criminal investigations, lengthy trials and appeals – are leading many states to re-evaluate and re-consider having this flawed and unjust system on the books.

Capital Punishment: Our Duty or Our Doom?

About 2000 men, women, and teenagers currently wait on America's "death row." Their time grows shorter as federal and state courts increasingly ratify death penalty laws, allowing executions to proceed at an accelerated rate. It's unlikely that any of these executions will make the front page, having become more or less a matter of routine in the last decade. Indeed, recent public opinion polls show a wide margin of support for the death penalty. But human rights advocates and civil libertarians continue to decry the immorality of state-sanctioned killing in the U.S., the only western industrialized country that continues to use the death penalty. Is capital punishment moral?

Capital punishment is the ultimate state sponsored violence. Until the death penalty is eliminated, no politician has standing to preach non-violence.

How can anybody argue that the death penalty is just?

What's on your mind today?