#Jackson Mississippi

[fenrislorsrai]

Seven months of searching for her lost son brought Bettersten Wade to a dirt road leading into the woods, past an empty horse stable and a scrapyard. The last time she’d seen her middle child, Dexter Wade, 37, was on the night of March 5, as he left home with a friend. She reported him missing, and Jackson police told her they’d been unable to find him, she said.  It wasn’t until 172 excruciating days after his disappearance that Bettersten learned the truth: Dexter had been killed less than an hour after he’d left home, struck by a Jackson police car as he crossed a nearby interstate highway. Police had known Dexter’s name, and hers, but failed to contact her, instead letting his body go unclaimed for months in the county morgue. 

GEE I WONDER IF THESE ARE RELATED

The decision to call the police was difficult for Bettersten. She did not trust them. In 2019, her 62-year-old brother died after a Jackson officer slammed him to the ground. The officer was convicted of manslaughter but is appealing.  Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Jackson officers of excessive force and attempting to cover up their actions, and accusing the city of failing to properly train and supervise the officers. The city has denied the claims and said it isn’t liable for what happened. The officers’ lawyer said they acted responsibly and lawfully. A federal judge dismissed some of Bettersten’s claims; others remain pending in state court.  Bettersten said her mother advised her not to call the police about Dexter.

The whole thing is worth reading, its not that long. But other key points: the coroner IDed Dexter within a few days and gave the info to the police to notify the family. After months of no info, officer in charge of missing persons retired. Within two weeks, the replacement officer notified her of the death and took her to fetch the body from a paupers field where coroner buried unclaimed bodies.

[pierayanna]

we’re not free until we’re all free

freepalestine. freecongo. copcityatl. 215+bodiesjacksonms. humanity. love. 🍉🍉

[astoriachef]

[odinsblog]

Flint Michigan and Jackson Mississippi are examples of what deliberate, structural, environmental racism looks like. Statewide and local governments intentionally neglecting (punishing?) the segregated Black parts of their states. This is not new. And the old, “But how will we pay for it,” argument doesn’t apply because the federal government makes sure that the money is there — it just gets steered away from Black neighborhoods and directed towards wealthy white communities. The USDA has done the same thing by economically disadvantaging and reliably discriminating against Black farmers.

Environmental racism is a racist policy as old as America itself.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

The Republican-dominated Mississippi house of representatives has passed a bill to create a separate, unelected court system in the city of Jackson that would fall outside the purview of the city’s voters, the majority of whom are Black.

The bill, which local leaders have likened to apartheid-era laws and described as unconstitutional, would also expand a separate capitol police force, overseen by state authorities. The force would expand into all of the city’s white majority neighborhoods, according to Mississippi Today. Jackson’s population is over 80% Black.

Speaking after House Bill 1020 passed on Tuesday evening, Jackson’s mayor Chokwe Lumumba branded the proposed law “some of the most oppressive legislation in our city’s history”.

“It’s oppressive because it strips the right of Black folks to vote. It’s oppressive because it puts a military force over people that has no accountability to them. It’s oppressive because there will be judges who will determine sentences over people’s lives. It’s oppressive because it redirects their tax dollars to something they don’t endorse nor believe in,” Lumumba said.

The bill passed largely along party lines in a 76-38 vote and will now travel to the state senate, where Republicans also hold a significant majority. The passage was preceded by an intense, four-hour floor debate in which members of the state’s Black caucus made impassioned pleas to reject the legislation and compared the bill to the state’s Jim Crow-era constitution of 1890.

The legislation was proposed by house Republican Trey Lamar, who is white and represents a district in the state’s north-west, which is majority white.

Lamar, who does not live in Jackson, has cited county court backlogs and crime rates in the city as his motivation for the proposed law. During floor debate, Lamar was asked if any of his constituents had asked for the bill. He replied: “I don’t live in Jackson … but you know what I like to do … I like to come to Jackson because it’s my capital city.”

The bill, which is over 1,000 pages long, would expand Jackson’s existing capitol complex improvement district, which is patrolled by the state’s capitol police and currently covers parts of the city’s downtown that house state government buildings. The district’s expansion would cover areas in the city’s north, which, according to local press, include entertainment and shopping neighborhoods.

The new court district would feature two judges directly appointed by Mississippi’s supreme court chief justice, Michael K Randolph, who is white. There would be two prosecutors, appointed by the state attorney general, Lynn Fitch, a white Republican. And two public defenders appointed by the state defender's office.

[mytransdate]

Isolated transgender of 20 yo, I am living in Jackson, Mississippi. I am doing college online and living at my parent's. As a black trans woman I feel lonely quite often and would love to meet a single guy to go out with. Love museums !

[reasoningdaily]

"Mississippi Discriminates Black Residents, Appoints Judges Over Elected Judges"

the US department of Justice is going to have to step in and do something about this because quite frankly Tate Reeves has lost his damn mind

[rjzimmerman]

Important note: 83% of the population of Jackson, Mississippi is African American. You fill in the blanks.

Excerpt from this story from Earther/Gizmodo:

Jackson, Mississippi is facing down a multifaceted water crisis days after severe flooding from the Pearl River this past weekend rendered much of the city without running or drinkable water.

The overflowing river left more than 180,000 residents without running or drinkable water coming out of the tap, and floodwaters remain as cleanup crews attempt to shore up the damage. Where there is running water, that water isn’t safe to drink due to treatment plant failures. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency earlier this week in response to the ongoing water issues.

The water shortage is expected to last for the next few days, according to city officials. There are now water distribution sites set up throughout Jackson, though some of them have already run out of bottles to distribute. Crews are working to fix the failed local water treatment plants. There are long lines at the distribution centers as residents now need to be given water to drink, brush their teeth, and for other necessities. Some schools have held virtual classes, while some restaurants closed for the time being in response to the water shortages. At least one hospital’s air conditioning has failed.

“Until it is fixed, it means we do not have reliable drinking water at scale. It means the city cannot produce enough water to reliably flush toilets, fight fires, and meet other critical needs,” the governor said in an online statement.

[funeralshawls]

“The discovery of 215 bodies buried in unmarked graves behind a jail outside of Jackson, Mississippi, has left a community in disbelief. The families are angry they were never notified of the deaths and how their loved ones are buried in graves marked by just a metal rod and a number. Amna Nawaz discussed the disturbing details that have emerged with Bettersten Wade and attorney Ben Crump.”

[callese]

[ohello0]

Saw someone on twt ask how the discovery of 215 bodies buried in unmarked graves behind a jail in Jackson Mississippi wasn’t the biggest story in the country right now…

*gestures vaguely*

The state is not going to air out their own fuck ups when everyone is already mad at them. They’re hoping this will leave the media cycle as quickly as possible.

Also the only reason the mass grave was found is because a mother was looking for son for months and found out that the police had not only killed him, but also took him to the unmarked grave behind a county jail, and buried him there with his id in his front pocket. They made her pay to claim the body and charged her even more money to move the body from the unmarked grave

[kemetic-dreams]

End police brutality protest in Jackson, Mississippi 1965

A European police officer pulls an American flag away from a little African child in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1965, having already taken his placard that read "No More Police Brutality," creating an iconic and ironic image from the civil rights period. Herron has memories of the activities surrounding those World Press Photo Award-winning images.

[disappointmentthemusical]

do y'all ever think abt how at the end of the big short they're like "yeah the dude who first shorted the housing market? he also shorted water"

[hurgablurg]

Pinned

* Update Aug. 2023: Damn, existential conflict has hands. Jesus Christ. Search the “right wing degeneracy” tag on this here blog to see more of this shit, if you can stomach it for the sake of education and fuelling your rage. It’s called what it is because right wingers have degenerated so far from the human condition and it’s most basic tenets of empathy and compassion that they barely qualify as human. And that is an objective fact.

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There’s so much shit going on, it can be impossible to focus on and be angry about it all. Hopefully this personal archive/list of previous pinned stuff can help feed fuel to the fire. If you can, take action.

“Actionable” and “Complainable” are within the context of the sphere of influence of an average North American. Awareness is merely step one.

Actionable:

Petition e-4286 - Canadian proposal to give asylum to transgender people threatened by violence in their country of residence. Canada, for all it’s own cruelties, has previously been a comparatively safe-haven for marginalized people, and can be once again. So called “western democracies” fall to the degeneracy of fascism and right-wing politics, and there are vulnerable people to evacuate. The petition is accepting signatures until May 26, 2023, at 9:33 a.m. (EDT). The form won’t accept my email for some ungodly reason, so the best I can do is share and promote it before the deadline.

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4268

Oklahoma Antitrans Bills - Oklahoma is putting forward a bill that would force anyone under age 26 to “medically detransition” as well as banning and felonizing the act of providing gender affirming medical care, along with a back-up bill calling for the same, but targettign anyone under the age of 21 . This is not for any observable purpose beyond causing pain and suffering. The people responsible for this bill and others like it have names and home addresses.

https://legiscan.com/OK/bill/SB129/2023 | https://legiscan.com/OK/bill/HB1011/2023

Other US States are also trying this bullshit, Texas is just going full hog on banning care for anyone.

https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB1029/2023 

https://19thnews.org/2023/01/trans-health-care-bills-2023-legislative-session-lgbtq/

PLUS the distilled shit in Florida - https://www.tumblr.com/socialistexan/710890023939096576/i-feel-like-us-conservatives-went-from-a-34-to-7?source=share

AND Texas’s proposed Bill to classify anyone with a Y chromosome as “male”, which takes biological existentialism past even it’s own already-insane limits. https://www.tumblr.com/spacelazarwolf/709351697217175552/reminder-that-the-sex-on-your-birth-certificate?source=share

AND Florida is just trying to straight up let the state kidnap your children. I don’t know what they’ll do with them, but considering that a LOT of Floridan politicians were good friends with Epstein...

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/254

Stop Cop City - Pigs and a bunch of corporate allies are trying to build a city-sized training facility for cops with the explicit intention of teaching them how to wage urban warfare against protesters and, I predict, “undesirables”, destroying an entire forest to do so, like some kind of cartoon villain. They’ve already killed someone, a forest defender named Tortuguita, claiming he shot one of the officers despite evidence contradicting that narrative, showing that it was friendly fire, and the buddyfuckers have refused to publish secondary body cam footage of what happened (not that it’s ever led to consequences for them before), let alone punish themselves. While the best and most effective action is to paint the streets with their blood until they acquiesce and turn tail, one not far behind that more people would be comfortable with is too scare their corporate cocksuckers enough that they pull out of the project, inflicting financial damage. Cowardly maybe, but I’d like activists be alive rather than not, though we all might not have any choice soon.

https://www.tumblr.com/effectiveresistance/709715348803452928

Update: Scratch the peaceful part - brick a cop, save lives.

https://www.tumblr.com/effectiveresistance/711200228209049600?source=share

And if you can, and if they try to bulldoze it, make some noise.

Don’t Say Gay Bill and Successor Attempts - You know it, you hate it, it’s the right wing trying to erase even the VERBIAGE of non-cishet people existing, this time in Indiana!

https://www.tumblr.com/pinelo/709805436447129600/reblog-if-you-see-this?source=share | https://action.aclu.org/send-message/in-dont-say-gay

If you can’t sign the petition, look for one more local! Or throw a brick into the back of the head of a rightoid. Every little bit helps.

Arizona Hotline Counterattack - Arizona has recently set up a hotline and email where “concerned parents” can report “critical race theory” and “gender expression” in the classroom. Makes them suffer! It’s free and easy to do!

Libraries at risk! Digital archivism is in danger. The Internet Archive is being sued by digital publishers to set a standard for digital rights and the avilability of knowledge. Digital publishers are baby-rage levels of mad at local, physical libraries for digitizing their already-paid-for collections and bypassing rental fees from said digital publishers, but know that suing a public library would be a PR nightmare, so they have instead joined together to sue an “acceptable” target - the Internet Archive in this case - intending to use the case to establish laws that affect all libraries and public institutions of the archival sort. The courts have decided, but the internet Archive has submitted an appeal to a higher court, and with support and enough noise, can have that ruling overturned in favour of the public. Give the petition a sign!

Jackson Mississippi is being held hostage. The city MUST be liberated, water restored, and the state’s control of them usurped.

Iowa and Mississippi Propose Bills to Ban Gay Marriage. It’s painful to remember that some leftists really thought the conservatives would only stop at “one kind” of “degenerate”, and that they were somehow safe from further persecution, as if the Maginot Line could ever fail once it was built, as if battle lines could only ever move forward or stay still.

Iowa and Mississippi (<- links to the individual bills and their authors) have both had republican politicians cosign and propose bills that would take human rights in their states back by years, citing “nature’s god” and other tin-foil-wearing hokery as their justification. Protest them, bombard them, threaten them, beat them, end them, whatever needs to be done to keep these rightoid, regressive degenerates from doing more harm.

Mi’kmaq Land Claim - The Mi’kmaq people of the east coast have put forth a land claim to a large chunk of New Brunswick, not to assert dominion or supplant current residents or governments (no change like that can even happen these days) but to secure the sanctity and security of both their unceded land (which currently sits in the hands of the government as crown land) and the ways in which that land is to be used. Show them some support!

Texas Is No Longer Trying to Hide the Swastikas - https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB20/2023 . Texas republicans are aligning to make it legal for “citizen militias” to police the border for “immigrants”, with the secret inclusion of also allowing them to police POLLING STATIONS. They aren’t even being subtle about it, they are just having armed brownshirt degenerates waving guns in peoples faces to keep them from voting. Americans, if you can, either bomb these senator’s phones, or bomb their houses. They have names and addresses.

Do Not Let The Evangelicals Win. Do Not Give Them An Inch

29/04/23 The fucking Earn It Act is back, and once again we need to beat this hydra’s head with a burning club.

Complainable:

Iran Protests - Human rights and freedom of expression are at risk in Iran, and people are sick of it! The people rise up and protest, first back in September, and intermittently since, most recently from writing, this February 19th weekend. As heroes clash with fascist and theocrats, the “government” still holds tens of thousands captive, suffering rape and torture, and at threat of execution. There are 227 politicians to “hold accountable” for this abuse.

https://www.tumblr.com/hurgablurg/700422628522049536/what-does-it-fucking-matter-if-my-finances-are-a?source=share

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The war on humanity is one of attrition, a war upon the soul, seeking to break spirit and inspire hopelessly, waged against us by ghoulish old men and sycophantic hypocrites. Only through action can we break their stranglehold and put an end to their abuse. Showing these fiends mercy is tolerating intolerance itself.

Rip Tortuguita.

RIP Brianna Ghey

RIP Ajike Owens

Health to Ralph Yarl.

RIP Nahel