Houston Texas racist history

Torres' only act of resistance was in taking a step away from the officers because he could not understand them. And yet, still, the officers involved were no billed for their actions. I could go on and on regarding such cases but will resolve to just listing the names of a few victims who have fallen victim to what can be perceived as similar circumstances since the 1970s: Ida Lee Delaney, Pedro Oregon, Byron Gillum, Tyrone Henry, Samuel Padilla, Juan Carlos Espinosa and Carl Hamilton.

On a broader scale, these incidents are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg in the Houston area. A study conducted by investigative journalists from the Houston Chronicle and the Detroit Free Press in 2001 found that, when combined, the Harris County Sheriff's Department and the Houston Police Department killed more "alleged" suspects than any other law enforcement agency in the entire U.S. This suggests that Houston has been the nation's deadliest city with regards to police brutality. A vast majority of these victims were either black or Latino and have already been "in custody" at the time of their death. Prior to the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Houston was making headlines for this social disease in other ways.

The Houston Race Riot of 1917 represents one of the most violent and enduring clashes between African-Americans and white police officers in U.S. history, as blacks in Freedman's Town took up arms against police officers that felt were terrorizing them on a daily basis. This incident took place at a time when Houston was experiencing a black population boom and were also empowered by the presence of black soldiers stationed near Houston.

As Latinos experienced their first population boom in the late 1970s, they were faced with similar conditions. In 1977, Houston police officers beat "Jose Torres Campos"a Latino and Vietnam War veteran, to death and dumped his body in Buffalo Bayou. A Harris County judge punished those officers with the fine of $1 for their actions. The next year Latinos launched violent protests against police terror near Moody Park on Houston's north-side. The violence lasted for days and counts as what is remembered as one of the most militant and violent protests in 20th century U.S. history.

These historical incidents offer us much insight into what continues to haunt us. But we should not diagnose the subjectivity, opinions, or psyches of the officers involved. I predict that the court hearings regarding this case will do just that. There will be a debate regarding the character and personality of the officers. Defense attorneys will describe how they have a racially or ethnically diverse family, how they might be in bi-racial marriages or relationships, how they have a diverse group of friends, how they might have once volunteered at a black or Latino event in schools or neighborhoods. All of these facts will be mentioned as a way to make them seem incapable of anti-black prejudices.

But what matters most in these conversations is that those officers are a reflection of the social environment and historical climate within which they work, and were possibly reared. In this sense, I see them too as victims, albeit certainly not to the extent of the boy they beat. Their own hearts have been made cold by societal forces that have been normalized as the status quo. They have been convinced to see young black men as a dangerous enemy, rather than as a population they are sworn to protect and serve. Somewhere in time, that relationship has been plagued, and it is hard to point the figure at black men for blame.

I was just reminded of this upon a visit to Houston this past weekend where I was astonished to see so many visible signs celebrating a rather violent form of anti-black racism. Confederate flags adorned vehicles about the town and neighborhoods seemed prolifically segregated along racial and class lines. As a native of the Houston area, I drove by the high school and community college that I attended and that was named after a confederate war hero, and had to pause to remind myself that this was rather normal in my home region.

An animosity towards blacks in particular seems to be engrained as a defining characteristic of the Houston area's social climate as evident in not only its legacy of anti-black injustices, but also in the ways that it celebrates the "old south" in much of its civic iconography. Our school population is predominantly black and Latino and working class and, yet, these same children are faced daily with visible reminders of how they and their ancestors are valued in the eyes and minds of those persons in charge of educating them and shaping their futures. Those mixed messages produce confusion and often have tragic results. Black and Latino children seem to normalize oppression and lose regard for not only the lives of others, but also their own. In communities that communicate to children that their futures or well being are not held in very high regard, those children become numb, violent, and often criminal.

After visiting my old neighborhood, I walked into a tavern in downtown Houston to grab a cold beer only to find a large picture adorning the wall that glorified and depicted an old map of Houston drawn to commemorate a lynching incident there. It was a haunting reminder of where I was. Guns and violent weaponry are celebrated throughout the Houston area as an emblem of local culture. But much of the community seems to be convinced that they are due to experience an enemy invasion of sorts. To borrow a term from the political theorist Slavoj Žižek, it seems as if white men, in particular in Houston, suffer from some form of symbolic castration anxiety in the sense that they are armed and mobilized to defend themselves against an assortment of social forces that, in reality, represent no tangible threat to their existence or happiness.

The apparent fears of black and Latino criminals that seems to prevail in the minds of many police officers, seem to be as much a reflection of desire as it is of empirical reality. It must be, in each of the cases I've mentioned, never has an officer been attacked or threatened. The threat of attack represented by a black youth laying face down with his hands over his head, as was Holley, is therefore a symbolic truth that forces them to act out violently.

Houston seems to be a city that glorifies a particular form of racial violence as part of its "tradition," and yet that has no clear idea of how to make sense of that history when it seems manifest in incidents such as the Holley beating. If one considers the ways that Houston's history has transpired and has been commemorated, then there does not seem to be a clear way to refute the argument that Holley was beaten because he is a young, black male and because he resides in a region where violence towards persons like him has been normalized a just and necessary mechanism of social control.

Cities like Houston must find better ways to reconcile their historical contradictions. Ignoring or manipulating historical facts is bad medicine. It exacerbates social disease and thwarts any community's ability to grow into a safer, more egalitarian, and more peaceful environment for families to live in. Somewhere along the line, we must learn to love one another in a deeper and truer way.

Egypt a sign of the current times....

The death toll in Egypt rose by as much as over 100 by Saturday, as anti-government protests extended for the fifth day in an attempt to pressure President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Riot police confront Egyptian army soldiers at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo after wide-spread protests early January 29, 2011. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused on Saturday to bow to demands that he resign after ordering troops and tanks into cities in an attempt to quell an explosion of street protests against his 30-year rule.


U.S. and European leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday issued statements opposing violence and calling for restraint by Egyptian authoritmeeting on the situation in Egypt.


Obama "reiterated our focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint; supporting universal rights; and supporting concrete steps that advance political reform within Egypt," the White House said in a statement released after a White House meeting on the situation in Egypt.

Eight others were killed when more than 200 prisoners tried to escape from Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo,.

Protesters defied curfew for the second time as demonstrations grew violent, with clashes with police. Army tanks were ordered into the streets of Cairo and Suez, where protesters welcomed them as protection against police.

Mubarak promoted his chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, to the vice presidency on Saturday. Suleiman, 74, a long-time Mubarak ally, becomes the first vice-president ever under this regime.

At least 31 people were killed in Alexandria, CNN reported.

The death toll is 74, according to the Associated Press.

At least two people were killed when police protecting the Interior Ministry near the site opened fire at a funeral procession for a dead protester.

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NY Times distorts Wikileaks cables on Iran, Arab States

By Gareth Porter and Jim Lobe
Cables Belie Gulf States' Backing for Strikes on Iran

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (IPS) - The dominant theme that emerged in U.S. media coverage of the first round of Wikileaks diplomatic cables last week was that Arab regimes in the Gulf - led by Saudi Arabia - shared Israel's view that Iran's nuclear programme had to be stopped by military force, if necessary.
The New York Times generated that narrative with a front- page story featuring an alleged quote by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urging the United States to "cut off the head of the snake", as well as other statements by Gulf Arab leaders suggesting support for military action.

"The cables reveal how Iran's ascent has unified Israel and many longtime Arab adversaries -notably the Saudis - in a common cause," the Times asserted.

The notion that these leaders, like Israel, favour a military solution to Iran's nuclear programme has become widely accepted by the news media in the past week. In a curtain-raiser to this week's talks in Geneva between Iran and the world's most powerful nations, for example, the Washington Post Monday asserted that the Wikileaks disclosure "show[ed] that Persian Gulf leaders have pressed for a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities…"

But a careful reading of all the diplomatic cables reporting the views of Saudi and other Gulf Arab regimes on Iran shows that the Times' account seriously distorted the content - and in the case of the Saudis, ignored the context - of the cables released by Wikileaks.

The original Times story, headlined "From Arabs and Israelis, Sharp Distress Over a Nuclear Iran", referred to "a largely silent front of Arab states whose position on sanctions and force looked much like the Israelis".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his U.S. neo- conservative backers immediately seized on the story as confirmation of what Israel has been saying all along.

In fact, the cables show that most Gulf Arab regimes - including Saudi Arabia itself - have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel's open advocacy of such a strike. They also show the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait expressing that concern with greater urgency in the past two years than previously.

Those facts were completely ignored, however, in the Times' account.

The Abdullah Quote

The most widely cited quote in support of the Times' thesis since the story's publication one week ago has been Abdullah's appeals to "cut off the head of the snake", referring to Iran. The story asserted that the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, had recalled the king's "frequent exhortations to the U.S. to attack Iran" during an April 2008 meeting with Gen. David Petraeus, the incoming chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

The implication was that al-Jubeir had made that statement during the Petraeus-Abdullah meeting. But the reporting cable makes clear that the Saudi ambassador made the remark two days later, in a conversation with the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Riyadh, Michael Gfoeller.

In his meeting with Petraeus, in fact, Abdullah had not spoken about Iran's nuclear programme but focused instead on the importance of "resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq", according to the cable.

The cable actually draws a contrast between al-Jubeir's remarks and those made by Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and director general of intelligence Prince Muqrin during Petraeus's visit. "On the other hand," it states after citing al-Jubeir's position, the foreign minister "called instead for much more severe U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending." Prince Muqrin "echoed these views", according to the cable.

The foreign minister would only say that "the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out," the cable said.

That statement mirrored precisely the official position of the George W. Bush administration at the time.

Even if Abdullah had in fact offered explicit support for a military attack against Iran in the meeting with Petraeus, however, that would not be a reliable indicator of Saudi policy toward the issue, according to Chas Freeman, a veteran diplomat who served as Washington's ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992 and maintains contact with top Saudi officials.

Freeman told IPS that such a statement would "fit a pattern of communication with the United States of ingratiating themselves with their protector".

Significantly, in that respect, the Abdullah-Petraeus meeting came three months after President Bush had visited Riyadh seeking support for a more confrontational stance against Iran; five weeks after Petraeus's predecessor at CENTCOM, Adm. William Fallon, had been fired in part for public statements that there would be no war against Iran; and less than a month after Vice President Dick Cheney had reportedly sought support for military action during his own visit to the kingdom.

Thomas Lippman, former Washington Post Middle East bureau chief and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, who has written a book on Saudi-U.S. relations, also said that the Abdullah quote would have been in line with the usual Saudi pattern of "telling the Americans what they wanted to hear".

"They wanted to be assured that they would be under the protection of the U.S.," Lippman told IPS.

In fact, the cables covering the period since President Barack Obama took office suggest that Saudi views have given even greater emphasis to political and economic strategies in dealing with Iran than was the case in 2008.

A Feb. 10, 2010 cable from Riyadh, for example, reported that Abdullah, disillusioned with U.S. blunders in Iraq that have given Iran the upper hand there, "had concluded that he needs to proceed with his strategy to counter Iranian influence in the region".

The new Saudi strategy, according to the cable, features promoting reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority combined with expanding relations with Russia, China and India to create "diplomatic and economic pressure[s] on Iran that do not directly depend on U.S. help".

UAE Worries About a "Preemptive Strike"

As for the UAE, the Times' account of the cables suggested an evolution in its thinking from earlier warnings that a U.S. or Israeli military strike would be "catastrophic" to a far more hawkish position. In February 2007, a cable quotes Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, as saying that the Iranian nuclear programme "must be stopped by all means available".

That exhortation, however, was put in a different context by the diplomat who reported on his conversation with bin Zayed, who also serves as deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces.

The diplomat noted that such "tough talk on Iran" should be "taken in the context of strong UAE interest in acquiring advanced military technology". Indeed, the UAE at the time was negotiating agreements to buy a record $17 billion in U.S. arms over the next several years.

Despite bin Zayed's bluster, the U.S. diplomat wrote in the Feb. 7, 2007 cable, the UAE "is clearly nervous about any U.S. actions that could upset their much larger and militarily superior neighbor".

Indeed, two years later, the crown prince told visiting U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke that a "military solution would only delay [Iran's nuclear] program, not derail it" and that "war with Iran would only harm the UAE". He also said he was "deeply concerned" over a possible Israeli military strike which, he added, "would have little impact on Iran's capabilities," according to an Apr. 5, 2009 cable.

He repeated his concerns about an Israeli attack to other high-ranking U.S. visitors three months later. After a Jul. 15 meeting between bin Zayed and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the embassy reported, "Without timely and decisive action by the United States, MbZ believes Israel will strike Iran, causing Iran to launch missile attacks - including hits on the UAE - and to unleash terror attacks worldwide." He then suggested that "the key to containing Iran revolves around progress in the Israel/Palestine issue."

According to a Jul. 23, 2009 cable, the prince subsequently declared to visiting senior State Department officials that "[Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is Hitler" – a remark highlighted in the Times' account that has also gained widespread media attention.

But the cable reported further expressions of alarm over the prospect and possible consequences of an Israeli pre-emptive strike. The prince called for Washington to immediately begin "joint planning" with the UAE to address such a "worst-case scenario".

Most recently, a Feb. 22, 2010 cable has the UAE's foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan, warning a visiting delegation headed by Rep. Nita Lowey, a strong supporter of Israel in Congress, that any "crisis or confrontation in the region [over Iran's nuclear programme] would create oil supply problems world wide."

According to the cable, the minister ended the meeting with a "soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran's regional influence."

"Iran Has Not Bothered Us"

While confirming growing Arab fears about Iran's regional clout and nuclear ambitions, the cables suggest that other Gulf Arab leaders - with the possible exception of Bahrain's King Hamad, the only regional leader with a majority Shi'a population - have little or no appetite for military action against Iran.

"A year or two ago, many in Kuwait hoped a silent, targeted strike would take out the troublesome reactor and leave the region more relaxed," a cable quotes a senior foreign ministry official who also happens to be the son of Kuwait's prime minister as recalling to his U.S. interlocutor last February.

"Now, however, they feared that any effort to disrupt the nuclear program, either military or through tough sanctions 'would go badly for the West,'" according to the cable, which quotes another official as saying that, while the emirate was worried about Iran's nuclear programme, it was "equally concerned about military preemption" and the retaliation that was likely to follow.

Qatar, meanwhile, is unwilling to "provoke a fight" with Iran, according to the emir of Qatar, as reported in a February 2010 cable on a meeting between the emir and Senator John Kerry. The emir explained that Doha would not "provoke a fight" with Iran, because its primary interest was a natural-gas field it shared with Tehran. He added that Iran "has not bothered us" during the history of relations between the two states.

A Feb. 2, 2010 cable makes it clear that the sultan of Oman, who has given the U.S. access to three military bases on its territory, is determined to maintain balance between Washington and Tehran. The cable reported that Muscat had twice rejected official U.S. offers to include it in a collective missile defence system aimed at Iran in 2009.

As for Bahrain, the Gulf's only Shi'a-majority sheikhdom and host of the U.S. 5th Fleet, the Times quoted a November 2009 cable in which King Hamad al-Khalifa declares that Iran's nuclear "programme must be stopped" and warns that "[t]he danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it."

No other cable from Manama elaborates, however, on what means the U.S. or other countries should use to halt the programme.