Tag: North Carolina

Who said racism is dead in America?


Cynthia Ramsey
Cynthia Ramsey

Post racial America is NOT post racial.  Racism is very much alive and well in America.  In small rural North Carolina’s Camden County a public school teacher’s bucket list is to kill all black people.  Math teacher Cynthia Ramsey works in a local high school and her remarks were directed towards students old enough to understand their implications.

It doesn’t end there…..Americans are xenophobic to the extent they can’t even tolerate hearing someone speaking a language other than English even though a person might not be talking to them.  Back in the day of my youth, speaking another language other than your mother’s tongue meant you had a degree of education that set you apart.  Indeed, learning a second language was a part of the public school education’s curriculum but no longer it seems. It probably didn’t help Asma Jama that much that she was a person of color who looked different….i.e. wore a head scarf and was clearly identifiable as a Muslim.  America doesn’t like nor tolerate Muslims either and especially those who talk to one another in language the average American can’t understand.  It could very well be they are planning some act of terrorism, perhaps?

Jodie Burchard-Risch
Jodie Burchard-Risch

Jodie Burchard-Risch, 43, and her husband had been sitting in the booth next to Jama, who was with her cousins and nieces. The couple became upset when they heard Jama and her family conversing in a foreign language, according to a criminal complaint.

Jama said the couple told them to “go home.” They said that “when you’re in America you should speak English.”

Jama, an ethnic Somali, came to Minnesota in 2000 from Kenya. She speaks three languages: English, Swahili and Somali.

“I’m home,” she told Burchard-Risch at the Applebee’s. “I can speak English, but we choose to speak whatever language we want.”

Authorities say that’s when Burchard-Risch hit Jama in the face with the glass mug.

….and in case you’re wondering if you click on the link detailing this story you can hear Jama speaking English in describing what happened to her better than 90% of Americans.

 

Islam in America


cvrI think it’s very important for Muslims to document their presence in America in order to preserve the legacy of Islam in this country, to pass it on and because quite simply no one else will.  To that end, one community in North Carolina is doing just that with a book that can by purchased online for all to see.

Durham,North Carolina used to be a town known for its tobacco and thriving black middle class.  Situated in the heart of that state, the city is now more commonly known for Duke University with tobacco playing no role at all in the city’s growth or prosperity.  It is also home to a thriving Muslim community that has been active and in existence for many, many decades and which has played a part in the development of that city.  The Athaan in the Bull City, written by Nazeeh Abdul-Hakeem chronicles the growth of Islam in Durham, North Carolina from a very personal perspective; it is devoid the polemics commonly associated with a discussion of Islam in this country and speaks solely of that city’s Muslims building an institution that could be viable for Muslims living in that town.  It should be required reading for America’s Muslims and a template to use for other locales to document their own presence in America.

North Carolina’s good and pretty damned bad news


NC

North Carolina state government is run solely by Republicans, known for being the party of family values and tough on crime.  Today it is neither, instead if you’ve got business you want to conduct and need the help of the Republican controlled government you can hire call girls to convince the State’s legislators to do your bidding. The opinion of the State’s  “Ethics Committee has just opened up a major problem for their state — they just made it legal for lobbying firms to purchase prostitutes to service politicians.” In a ruling that’s just as bad as the Citizen’s United case decided on by the $50KUS Supreme Court which gave corporations the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other ‘political tools’ to defeat or promote individual candidates or policy. Legally armed it seems the Republican party will go to any lengths to pursue it’s agenda even when the means are totally against the Party’s claims of standing for moral, traditional values. That shouldn’t come as any surprise, politicians in general and Republican governors in states bordering North Carolina have come under recent scrutiny for unethical, sometimes illegal behavior. (I’m speaking of Bob McDonnell in Virginia and South Carolina’s Mark Sanford) What’s even depressing is that it seems given the chance the electorate prefers morally corrupt Republican officials to sanitized Democratic policy…….NOT GOOD.

the 3's silhouetteThe good news coming out of North Carolina is the prosecutor’s office handling the murders of three young American Muslims has said it will seek the death penalty against Craig Hicks who had confessed to the crimes. There is no doubt he did it; he turned himself in immediately after killing his victims and it was clearly a capital murder case which the prosecutor confirmed with this decision.  There are still those who claim this was about a neighborly dispute, i.e. parking and that insistence might strengthen the DA’s case for seeking the death penalty judging on what has been found in Hicks’ possession;

A search of Hicks’ computers showed he kept pictures and notes on parking activity in the lots around his condo, police said in the warrants.

which would surely prove intent and premeditation but it’s also equally clear from

46 year old Craig Stephen Hicks
46 year old Craig Stephen Hicks

Hicks’ own Facebook posts he hated religion and or religious expression.  The clearest manifestation of religion, indeed the in-your-faceness of the Muslim women who wore hijab were his Muslim neighbors who he killed.  Hats off to the Durham county district attorney.  North Carolina trends towards a conservatism stronger than the Nation’s and with the current Islamophobia prevalent on the national stage whether the DA can prosecute towards a death penalty will depend on the judge accepting his evidence for such a ruling.  Stay tuned; it ain’t over yet.

 

You know we can hear you, right?


yelton

Don Yelton was his own self parody during this interview on The Daily Show

and he didn’t much seem to care even following the firestorm his interview created because in today’s Republican Party there are no negative repercussions for saying or doing things that are  racist and have an adverse effect on the public in general, but there are some times rewards and political gain to be had from such behavior.  Yelton himself testified to that doubling down on his remarks by saying that being kicked off the county election board following the Daily Show interview wasn’t the first time that happened to him and implying he’ll be back perhaps even stronger than he is now.

Yelton said he was previously removed from his position as a precinct chair in Buncombe County in 2012, but was re-elected at a three-person meeting by two votes — his own and his wife’s. He said he was previously removed for voicing what the party considered support for an independent candidate.

Yelton said he has been retired since he was fired 16 years ago from a job as a county waste reduction specialist. He was fired, essentially, for doing the job too well, he said.

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” he said.

He also noted that local Republicans have long complained that they can’t get enough media coverage, and that he had finally provided some.

There’s no reason to doubt him if you look at the way Republican leadership conducts itself; defeats are labelled victories, positions that are without principle are considered fundamental, basic truths and demagogic leaders are considered those who speak for the will of the people.  Such is the the state of  today’s #DemonicGOP.

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Scared yet? You shouldn’t be!


scared_faceThere’s good news on the horizon for all of you who have believed the news pounded in the Nation’s subconscious since 911 that there’s some sort of Muslim plot to terrorize the homeland into submission.  We’ve always said such notions simply don’t exist among Muslim citizens of America and each year we’ve been proven right.  Well the trend keeps supporting that notion, with the latest news describing the prospects of terror from America’s Muslims as “nil”.

Try as al-Qaida might to encourage them, American Muslims still aren’t committing acts of terrorism. Only 14 people out of a population of millions were indicted for their involvement in violent terrorist plots in 2012, a decline from 2011′s 21. The plots themselves hit the single digits last year.

So much for a widespread stereotype. According to data tracked by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in North Carolina and released Friday (.PDF), there were nine terrorist plots involving American Muslims in 2012. Only one of them, the attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, actually led to any violence. There were no casualties in that or any other incident. And the Triangle study tracks indictments, not convictions.

……The sample of Muslim Americans turning to terror is “vanishingly small,” Kurzman tells Danger Room…..Yet the scrutiny by law enforcement and homeland security on American Muslims has not similarly abated. The FBI tracks “geomaps” of areas where Muslims live and work, regardless of their involvement in any crime. The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 restrictions on government surveillance remain in place.

So while you don’t have anything to fear from your Muslim neighbors, you still have an intrusive, bloated, super secret, covert government that is finding ways to insert itself into your daily routines at your expense.  What the government and most Americans fail to realize is America’s Muslims are busy living their lives and finding their niche on this multi-cultural landscape like this Muslim American8424302590_8c1284e1c2 , Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first Muslim woman to compete on behalf of the United States in international competition.

Ibtihaj, a two-time U.S. National Fencing Champion and a member of the U.S. National Fencing Team since 2009, began fencing at the age of 13. She was raised in an athletic household with four siblings and played many recreational sports growing up. After searching for a sport that would enable her to comply with the Muslim requirement of modesty by remaining fully covered, her mother pointed out students fencing in full body uniforms while driving by their local school. Muhammad said because of this chance moment, “I’d like to think fencing found me.” Reminding students again of the ability to find a passion regardless of circumstance she added, “Don’t let anyone tell you no. There’s nothing you can’t achieve.”

America, it’s time to throw off your shackles of fear and embrace those who make up a part of the American fabric, albeit with different names and clothing than your own, but who are your equal in their fealty to the rule of law and the pursuit of happiness.  You can do it America if you stop being afraid.

Hat tip to @ZahraBillo

An interesting development


Remember this guy? Earlier this year he was caught TWICE trying to board an airplane with some sort of explosive device.  However, on his flight from Midland, Texas back to North Carolina he was caught with about 5 pounds of C4 explosive and was detained and charged.  The charges have been dropped by the federal prosecutor because it’s said there is no proof he meant to carry 5 pounds of explosive on board a plane, that he merely forgot it was in his carry on bag.

Staff Sergeant Trey Scott Atwater, is a member of the 7th Special Forces Group trained as an unconventional warfare specialist.  He’s been in the military for almost 12 years it is claimed and he forgot he carried explosives with him, AFTER he also forgot and was detained at the airport in North Carolina for having a smoke grenade in the same carry on bag?  Perhaps he didn’t receive proper training, or has been living in a vacuum for the past 12 years.  Post 911 America should not be tolerant of any error the likes of the kind Atwater committed.   The US military is not getting their money’s worth out of the training they’ve given him or are they?  The blog willyloman does a very good job dissecting who Atwater is and what he does and frankly in today’s world of  false flag operations its scary. It is not comforting either when you consider the FBI who conducted the investigation and would no doubt accede to the charges being dropped has a reputation for being the promoter of operations the likes of which are mentioned in this article.

Image

THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts.

 

But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.

 

 

One can’t help but wonder was Atwater a part of a bigger plan?  Blogger Willyloman asks the question why weren’t all the passengers on the North Carolina bound flight, the one where Atwater was caught with 5 pounds of C4, searched to see if they were carrying detonators to go with the explosives. Why didn’t Atwater who was stopped in North Carolina not think to make sure he didn’t make the same mistake on his return flight and remove the plastic explosives?  Had he become that callous that he didn’t think he would be discovered or worse that it didn’t matter he was carrying and inevitably as happened, he would not be held accountable? One may never know why he and those behind him were so sloppy or how many others like him have crisscrossed America with the same dangerous payloads which leads me to give some credibility to the notion that false flag operations, or the government initiating and even carrying out many acts of terror is a real possibility.  As one historian succinctly put it

The record of the secret police in fostering rather than preventing revolutionary activities is especially striking in France during the Second Empire and in Czarist Russia after 1880. It seems, for example, that there was not a single anti-government action under Louis Napoleon which had not been, inspired by the police; and the more important terroristic attacks in Russia prior to war and revolution seem all to have been police jobs.

 

 

 

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More of the same


WIFE OF NC TERRORISM SUSPECT DESCRIBES ELABORATE POLICE RUSE

McClatchey Papers

The wife of Daniel Boyd, accused of being a terrorist ringleader, said Tuesday that her husband and two sons are “completely innocent” of charges that they plotted to kill themselves and others in the name of Islam.

Meeting at a restaurant in Garner on Tuesday afternoon, Sabrina Boyd sat covered head to toe in traditional Muslim garb, only her brown almond eyes visible. She and her husband, who years ago had military training in Afghanistan and fought with Muslim rebels against the Soviets, were committed to living pure and honest lives, she said. They believed in helping their neighbors and they attempted, on occasion, to help the children of immigrant Muslims hold their faith while growing up amid the pressures of American culture.

“My husband was not plotting,” Boyd said. “It’s premature for everyone to jump on the guilty bandwagon.”

Leaders of the Muslim American Society’s Raleigh branch made a similar point earlier in the day at a news conference held to urge the media not to convict the men before they’ve had a trial.

But Boyd, a 41-year-old mother of five and U.S.-born convert to Islam, reserved her sharpest comments for what she called a cruel trap that law enforcement authorities set up to get her out of her house Monday while agents scoured it for documents after the arrest of her husband, two sons and four other men.

Boyd, whose family lives in the Johnston County community of Willow Spring, described a harrowing experience Monday afternoon when she answered the door to find a man she thought was a family friend wearing a shirt that appeared to be bloodied. He told her that Daniel and their three sons, Dylan, Noah and Zakariya, were in a serious car crash. He asked her to get into a Highway Patrol cruiser that would take her to Duke Hospital, where they were being treated.

Boyd summoned her daughter and pregnant daughter-in-law. They wrapped their heads in scarves, grabbed their Qurans and flew out the door. For Boyd, it was a particularly painful experience. Her 16-year-old son, Luqman, died in a car crash near their home in 2007.

When they arrived at Duke Hospital, the cruiser took them to a construction site at the rear of the facility. A man dressed as a doctor came out and asked whether she was the wife. When she said yes, he extended his hand. She told him she does not shake men’s hands. He then grabbed her wrist and handcuffed her.

“I’m not a doctor. I’m an agent and your family is not in the hospital,” he told her. “You’re being detained, and you need to cooperate with us.”

Boyd estimates she was then surrounded by 30 agents who frisked her and asked whether she had weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

They drove her in a car, separate from her daughter and daughter-in-law, to the Johnston County’s Sheriff’s Department, where she picked up Noah, 15, who was not arrested.

“That was an awful dirty trick,” Boyd said she told the agents. “You guys pulled a horrific lie on me and on my daughters. You know we’ve been through this before.”

U.S. District Attorney George E. B. Holding declined to respond to Boyd’s version. “I am sticking to the four corners of the indictment. We try our cases in court and won’t go back and forth before then,” he said Tuesday.

Trips called pilgrimages

Boyd said the many trips the family made abroad, especially to Jerusalem, were pilgrimages to give her sons an exposure to the Arabic language and a chance to experience the daily rhythms of life in predominantly Muslim communities.

“The point of a pilgrimage is to see the Al-Aksa mosque, the Dome of the Rock, to hear the call to prayer and to make a prayer,” she said.

Boyd said her husband and sons attempted to make two trips to Israel. Daniel and Noah were admitted in 2006. One year later, when her husband wanted to take Zakariya to Jerusalem to help him cope with his brother’s death, the two were denied entry at the airport in Tel Aviv. After being detained for two days, they were flown to France.

As to charges her family stockpiled military-style weapons, Boyd said her family enjoyed hunting and shooting. “They exercise their constitutional right to bear arms,” she said.

When will and good citizenship convergence you have success


The land of opportunity is better than what we’ve witnessed the last eight years of fear and warmongering and so it is, that ingenuity on the part of a citizen and the will on the part of a businessman combined to render a service to a community and do so successfully in a time of economic turmoil.

University Bank now has an entire subsidiary devoted to financial products that comply with Muslim religious law, or Shariah. It has done nearly $80 million in Islamically approvable “mortgage-alternative” financing for residential and commercial real estate in 15 states.

This past week, while the stock market plunged to its lowest point in a dozen years and close-to-home General Motors teetered near bankruptcy, University Bank recorded one of its best periods ever. It completed 11 home sales, more than twice the weekly average, to observant Muslim customers, and pushed four more closings into next week.

On more than one occasion I have chided Muslim customers who allowed themselves to be debased by a Charlotte, NC bank that really doesn’t want their business. No one should pay anyone else to take their money. So maybe those good citizens of Charlotte can go down to a bank who really wants their business and help make them even more profitable. There’s a lesson to learn from this: people working together can accomplish a lot more for all than one group that wants to humiliate another group because of some false sense of patriotism, citizenship or racial/ethnic arrogance.