Arsenal For Democracy

What Happened to Sandra Bland?

By Maria Jackson July 24, 2015 - 11:15 am October 8, 2015 Arsenal Essay, Arsenal Guest

Sandra Bland’s life ended when she met a wall of misogynistic racism centuries in the making. Guest post by Maria Jackson.

Sandra Bland was making her way through Texas, having just accepted a position at her Alma Mater, Prairie View A&M University, when she was pulled over, supposedly for changing lanes without signaling. Detecting that she was less than pleased, Trooper Encinia asked Bland what was “wrong”. After Bland responded in a very clear manner, Encinia described Bland as “combative and uncooperative”.

As if Bland should have greeted his traffic stop with smiles and handshakes. As if being irritable and not prostrate is a crime. When she declined to extinguish her cigarette and leave her vehicle, Encinia threatened to pull her out of the car and “light [her] up” with his taser.
After making a phone call and eventually being able to post bail, Bland was found dead in her cell.

What happened to Sandra Bland is something that has been happening for a long time, continues to happen, and will happen again.

However, this is more than a matter of the long history of suspicious deaths and sketchy police stops. There’s another context that makes it easy to get away with doing those things — especially to Black women in America.

It takes bricks to build a wall. Dozens and dozens of hardened clay pieces fitting together precisely. These bricks don’t mean much independently, but when affixed to another the walls they build can protect, defend, or deter. These walls can stand — impenetrable — for multiple generations, through hundreds of years, in near permanence.

Sandra Bland was, in part, the victim of a culture that, brick by brick, had assembled stereotypes of Black women as angry, aggressive, threatening — something to be contained forcibly. It is that wall, part of the foundation underlying Anti-Blackness, that continues to dominate our daily lives — and daily deaths.

Each week, in the news, even in “pop culture,” you can see the bricks being laid and the wall growing ever higher, even in a supposedly post-racial society.

When actress Amandla Stenberg was accused of “attacking” Kylie Jenner and being an “angry black woman”, that was a recent brick. Another brick was set in place when Nicki Minaj correctly called out the racist preferences of MTV and the VMAs but various media outlets instead depicted her as an angry, ungrateful, attacking bully (see AFD essay➚).

There are so many bricks being produced to support American racism and misogynoir against Black women, that there are even some left over to hurl. Like all stonings, those bricks are meant to silence. Ever since Sandra Bland’s murder, the same old bricks have been thrown at her corpse, attempting to bruise and sully her name to make her humanity unrecognizable.

Yesterday, Bland’s death was ruled ‘suicide by hanging’. The announcement of these findings were coupled with toxicology reports of marijuana found in her blood. However, without results that speak to how long ago Bland smoked or ingested the drug, Warren Diepraam, the first assistant district attorney of Waller County, felt free to hypothesize (rather implausibly) that it was “possible that it could have been smoked in the jail.”

Brick, flung.

Like me, Bland was searching for meaning. Like me, Bland had reportedly suffered from joblessness. Like me, Bland was was sick and tired institutional and systemic racism. Like me, Bland was a Black American Millennial. She was connected to a community of like minds who support #BlackLivesMatter. Bland made videos expressing her frustration with racism and gave voice to the movement.

The bricks that build the walls that divide us, crush us. Bland and I used the same hashtags and technology to talk about the sorrow and rage felt at the deaths of black men and women at the hands of those (supposedly) sworn to serve and protect. No one wakes up expecting to become a hashtag at the end of the day, but now we #SayHerName too: Sandra Bland.

Guest essayist Maria Jackson is a thirty-something, 4th generation Georgia Peach who writes for Shakefire.com and can be heard trading opinions and laughter on the Nerdgasm Noire podcast, with Arsenal For Democracy columnist De Ana and others. Co-owner and full time fatshionista for luvfattax.com.

Policing Black Women’s Emotions and Opinions

By De Ana Jones July 24, 2015 - 11:00 am July 24, 2015 Arsenal Essay

The bigger picture framing Nicki Minaj’s frustrated tweets about the VMAs.

Nicki Minaj at the 2010 VMAs. (Photo Credit: Philip Nelson / flickr)

I’ve said before that there is an unwritten code of conduct that Black women must adhere to in order to be taken seriously, listened to, or even allowed to live.

Most other people will quickly claim it’s the attitudes of Black women that causes us to be dehumanized, but that is untrue. Even when we’re being polite, any disagreement from Black women is treated as aggression. So where and when are we allowed to speak up if we’re being mistreated, when everything we say is considered an attack?

On Tuesday, rapper Nicki Minaj took to Twitter to vent about the VMA nominations. Nicki is by far the most popular female rapper out there right now. She has found major pop success as well. But she has always been very vocal about how Black women in the music industry often don’t get the recognition they deserve for their work.

If I was a different "kind" of artist, Anaconda would be nominated for best choreo and vid of the year as well. ???

— NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ) July 21, 2015

She’s no stranger to the way the public sees her (and other Black women) either, so in her tweets on Tuesday, Nicki Minaj states plainly her disappointment at her record breaking video for Anaconda being snubbed for Video of the Year. Nicki points out that although her video was a viral success, broke Vevo records, and was even parodied on the Ellen DeGeneres show, her video did not receive a nomination. She also points out that her video was a celebration of women’s bodies, but it seemed that this type of celebration was only acceptable on thinner artists.

Then this happened.

@NICKIMINAJ I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 21, 2015

Within the hour, articles popped up all over the internet about a “feud” between the two women, stating that Nicki Minaj had attacked Taylor in her tweets, even though Taylor Swift’s name wasn’t mentioned once, nor had Nicki been malicious towards other artists.

Nicki, in her own words, was pointing out where she saw how misogyny played a part in who was considered worthy of accolades and who was looked over. She was pointing out a complex problem in the most direct way possible. But it seemed that the media wanted to skip over her entire point and instead focus on a non-existent feud between the her and Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift’s tweets did more than just derail a real and important point that Nicki Minaj was trying to make. Aside from being the most obvious case of a hit dog hollering, Taylor’s tweet demonstrated a huge issue that mainstream White Feminism has when it comes to dealing with Black women and other People of Color.

They don’t get that our experiences are different from theirs and often try an chastise us for perceived slights against them, while ignoring the real ones we face. Although Nicki Minaj’s tweets are a criticism of the VMAs, Taylor tries to make it seem as if Nicki is “pit[ting] women against women” for simply speaking about her experience as a thick and Black woman in the music industry.

Instead of understanding that Nicki’s experience as a woman is different from what her own might be, Taylor instead falls back to a very narrow — and White — view of what life is like as a woman.
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Mapping the projected Turkish occupation zone in Syria

By Bill Humphrey July 24, 2015 - 4:15 am September 22, 2016 Arsenal Analysis, Arsenal Research

Arsenal For Democracy estimates and maps the perimeter dimensions of Turkey’s potential occupation zone / U.S. no-fly zone in northern Syria. (The detail map is near the middle, after the evidence used to prepare it. A regional map showing the area in context is attached at the end.)

As I’ve explored previously, for the past month, the Turkish military and the Turkish government have been disagreeing quasi-publicly as to whether to invade and occupy northern Syria to establish a “humanitarian zone” (supposedly for refugees).

The military brass is trying to delay at least until a new government is formed and the newly-elected parliament can take a vote on it, while the ruling AK Party is pushing for an intervention sooner. It seems to have been an AK Party aspiration, off and on, since at least September 2014, whereas the military isn’t entirely sure it’s a good idea in a general.

On February 22, 2015, Turkey’s military staged a lightning incursion in and out Syria, moving more than 600 troops and 100 tanks along the Euphrates River for some 22 miles (35 km) and then returning to the Turkish border a few hours later. The objective then was ostensibly to secure and re-locate a historic tomb of national significance (which was being guarded by Turkish Special Forces in a vulnerable position). But it may have also served to test Turkey’s ability to invade that far into Syria’s warzones without major resistance, although it was on the other side of the river, south of Kobani.

Of course, a speedy raid and departure would be quite different from a full-scale intervention to hold territory indefinitely. So how big of an area are we actually talking about for this possible massive military operation?

Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, indicated in The Globalist in early July (based on “media reports”) that the zone would be as follows:

Specifically, Turkish forces may be aiming to seize a [88-km] 55-mile-long stretch of territory from Azaz in the west to Jarabulus in the east, thus establishing a [32-km] 20-mile-deep cordon sanitaire against the violence next door and creating a staging ground for pro-Turkey Syrian rebels.

Following meetings between U.S. and Turkish government officials this week, Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reported the latest rumors, which were far more expansive:

A recent joint action consensus between Turkey and the United States, which includes the use of the İncirlik Airbase in southern Turkey in fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists, also covers a partial no-fly zone over the Turkey-Syria border, according to sources.

The 90-kilometer line between Syria’s Mare [Marea] and Cerablus [Jarabulus] will be 40 to 50 kilometers deep, sources told daily Hürriyet, while elaborating on the consensus outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, following a cabinet meeting on July 22.

However, sources avoided saying whether such a zone would be broadened in the future.

In addition to that representing a larger area, this news also suggests Turkey’s longstanding demand of getting U.S. air support and a no-fly zone for such an operation may have been met.

If it comes to pass with those enlarged specifications, as depicted in the map below, the U.S.-patrolled no-fly zone and Turkish-occupied “humanitarian zone” on the ground in Syria is going to run to the edge of the city of Aleppo at minimum — and could theoretically even include the entire city (not depicted). That variance represents the aforementioned range of a 40-50 km depth from the border, which falls either on the north side of the city (leaving it out) or the south side (including it).

However, it seems unlikely to me that an initial zone would include Aleppo itself, simply because it has been the site of a protracted siege for several years and Turkey would have to break into it to take it over, while the U.S. would have to fight for air supremacy over the city. Of course, some hardline nationalists in Turkey have never gotten over the loss of Aleppo to the French and Syrians in the border-setting wars that followed the Ottoman Empire’s destruction in World War I.

Regardless of motivations, even stopping just short of Aleppo would put the Turkish military into position to provide direct military support to its allied opposition forces trapped in Aleppo. The Syrian Army would likely have to withdraw, and the Syrian Air Force might not be able to continue aerial attacks.

Below is my approximated projection of the minimum Turkish Occupation Zone based on various recent Turkish media descriptions, as well as (loosely upon) local highways and land features. In terms of west-east width, this is using the wider “Azaz in the west to Jarabulus in the east” parameter than the one reported in Hurriyet (Marea to Jarabulus). In terms of depth, it is using the much larger 40-50 km measurement from Hurriyet, at least on the southwest corner, where it seems most applicable.

July 24, 2015 projection of the perimeter of a potential Turkish occupation zone and no-fly zone in northern Syria. Click to enlarge.

First, a key observation: Manbij is located on the M4 highway. If Manbij is indeed the big southeast anchor point of the occupation zone, as even the conservative estimate would suggest, that highway not only forms a convenient southern perimeter line but also restricts ISIS movements westward from Raqqa. Moreover, it is the same road that extends to the Euphrates, to the precise spot where the Tomb of Suleyman Shah was located until it was moved in the February operation. So that might be another sign that the incursion was a test.

Second: That’s a pretty huge area, currently controlled (to my knowledge) almost entirely by ISIS and the Syrian Army, except for some of the western locations, which are held by Saudi-backed rebel groups that are theoretically also aligned with Turkey. They might, however, not be overly receptive to a Turkish military occupation in a predominantly Arab territory (though ethnic facts on the ground didn’t deter Turkey’s “peacekeeping” occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974, which hasn’t ended 41 years later). On either side of the Syrian zone are Syrian Kurdish forces and communities (including Kobani, across the Euphrates on the eastern side).

Third: The U.S. no-fly zone would reportedly be based out of Incirlik Air Base in Turkey (see our map) if that deal doesn’t fall apart again.

Fourth, a qualification, as I was taught to make at the University of Delaware Geography Department: keep in mind that I am looking at satellite and road maps with a somewhat limited familiarity with the area in question. Military conditions and physical features on the ground that I can’t see might make some of the lines way off.

[Added at 4:45 AM EDT: While I was writing this report, the wires broke the news that Turkish fighter jets began airstrikes across the border from the Turkish town of Kilis on ISIS targets inside Syria. You can see Kilis is directly north of the northwest corner of the zone mapped above, which means the targets are probably inside the zone. Turkey says the jets fired from within Turkish airspace.]

[Added at 6:25 PM EDT: The Turkish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that U.S. Air Force planes and other coalition partners will be permitted to fly armed and manned missions from Incirlik Air Base and bases at Diyarbakir and elsewhere. The Ministry did not confirm whether a no-fly zone was part of the deal.]

[Added at 3:30 AM EDT on July 25, 2015: And below is a zoomed-out map showing the same area drawn above, this time in red, but within the regional context.]

Regional View: July 24, 2015 projection of the perimeter of a potential Turkish occupation zone and U.S. no-fly zone in northern Syria. Click to enlarge.

NYT: “Afghan Security Forces Struggle Just to Maintain Stalemate”

By Bill Humphrey July 23, 2015 - 9:00 am July 23, 2015 Arsenal Bolt

Arsenal Bolt: Quick updates on the news stories we’re following.

“Afghan Security Forces Struggle Just to Maintain Stalemate” – The New York Times

And after a casualty rate last year that the previous American commander called unsustainable, the numbers this year are even worse: up more than 50 percent compared with the first six months of 2014. About 4,100 Afghan soldiers and police officers have been killed and about 7,800 wounded, according to statistics provided by an official with the American-led coalition here.
[…]
Home visits were banned after many soldiers began deserting, and in recent months in Musa Qala and a neighboring district, there have been several cases of soldiers’ shooting themselves in the hope that they would be evacuated, said Lieutenant Javed, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name.
[…]
Ahmad, a battlefield medic in Musa Qala who would only give his first name, said that he and his colleagues treated arm and leg wounds on the front lines, but that “when the soldiers got wounded on chest, head and abdomen, we cannot treat them or stop bleeding.”

Periodically cut off by the Taliban, the soldiers have not always been able to evacuate casualties out of the district.

(From my previous reading, U.S. airborne medical evacuation coverage — which used to extend across nearly the whole country — was one of the last things keeping the Afghan Army in the fight. Without that, they’re up a creek without a paddle whenever someone takes a serious wound on the battlefield.)

Previously from Arsenal For Democracy on this Topic:

“The US seems pretty optimistic about Afghanistan’s army” – January 5, 2015
“Army of the Imagination?” – December 30, 2009

3 Dem Senators say NCLB reforms don’t go far enough

By Kelley July 23, 2015 - 8:00 am September 24, 2015 Arsenal Analysis, Arsenal Local

capitol-dome-large

The US Senate passed a bill last Thursday, which would overhaul No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, by a strong bipartisan vote of 81-17. Only three Democratic Senators voted against passage of the Senate’s version of the bill: Elizabeth Warren (MA), Chris Murphy (CT), and Cory Booker (NJ).

These three Senators, along with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), had with broad Democratic support unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to the bill, called the “Murphy Amendment.” The amendment had called for states to identify schools that required intervention: the lowest performing 5% of schools in the state; high schools where less than 2/3 of students graduate on time; and any school where poor, disabled, or English language learner (ELL) students do not meet state-set goals for two consecutive years.

States would then be required to set-up an intervention strategy to better support those schools. Unlike the original NCLB legislation, under-performing schools would not lose funding, but would receive extra support to create a long-term plan to improve education outcomes.

All but three Democratic Senators voted in favor of the Murphy Amendment. The exceptions were Florida’s Bill Nelson (who did not vote), New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, and Montana’s Jon Tester. The only member of the Republican majority to join them was Rob Portman of Ohio.

Supporters of the amendment (including the President) believed that this amendment would have allowed the education reform bill to also serve as a civil rights bill, forcing each state to live up to its responsibilities to all of its citizens. A press release from Senator Murphy’s office notes the support the amendment received from civil rights advocates:

“While many educators hail the Senate bill as an improvement over the current federal education system, a coalition of 36 civil rights organizations are concerned there won’t be enough accountability, and that failing minority and disabled students will fall through the cracks.”

Accountability is a key term in the debate over education reform. Senator Booker says the reforms which passed in the Senate do not, “provide meaningful accountability measures that address the disparate achievement gaps for low-income students and students of color.” Without appropriate safeguards to identify and serve the states’ failing students and schools, there will be no way to tell if the bill is effective or fair.

The amendment’s opponents claim that the amendment would retain NCLB’s emphasis on testing, since states would be required to use test scores in their formula to determine failing schools. However, the amendment would give more power to the states to use other measures in their formula as well, such as high school graduation rates.

Senator Warren, who initially voted for the bill as a member of the Education Committee, explained her vote on the final bill:

“In many ways, this bill represents a significant improvement from No Child Left Behind, moving away from rigid standardized tests and respecting the vital work that our teachers do every day–and I strongly support those changes. But this bill is also about money, and it eliminates basic, fundamental safeguards to ensure that federal dollars are actually used to improve both schools and educational outcomes for those students who are often ignored.”

Although the Murphy Amendment was rejected, it remains relevant in the NCLB overhaul debate. The U.S. House passed a much less bipartisan reform bill on July 8, by a margin of one vote after a sizable Republican revolt and unified Democratic opposition.

The House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House will now have to work to merge the House version and the Senate version into a bill that President Obama will sign. The call to make this a sweeping civil rights bill and the need to ensure that bill brings improvement to our nation’s education system are themes that are sure to echo throughout DC and around the country in coming weeks.

Warren, Booker, and Murphy have probably foreshadowed much of the debate ahead, as each legislator lobbies for their vision of education in America in the ultimate version of the legislation.

President Obama stands up for second chances

By Kelley July 22, 2015 - 9:00 am December 2, 2015 Arsenal Analysis

Last week, on Monday, July 13th, President Obama announced that he would commute the sentence of 46 Federal prisoners, non-violent drug offenders who he believed were serving punishments disproportionate to their crime.

In his Facebook video to explain his decision, the President noted:

“These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years.

I believe that at its heart, America is a nation of second chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second chance.”

Barack Obama signing clemency grants to convicted non-violent drug offenders with disproportionate sentences, July 2015. (Credit: The White House)

Obama’s decision is not a singular event, but part of a series of events throughout his presidency aimed at bringing awareness to some of the broken parts of the American criminal justice system.

Since taking office, Obama has commuted 89 men and women serving time, 76 of whom were nonviolent drug offenders.

On Tuesday, July 14th, President Obama addressed the NAACP on the need for reform in our criminal justice system.

The Marshall Project notes, “no sitting president has ever publicly spoken at such length and in such detail as Obama now has about the persistent problems of crime and punishment in this country.”

Obama’s no-holds-barred speech touched upon everything from the over-sentencing of non-violent drug offenders to racial injustices in the criminal justice system to the school-to-prison pipeline to the detriments of solitary confinement.

He offered specific and necessary reforms to improve our criminal justice system, such as lowering or eliminating mandatory minimums and addressing crime prevention at the community level. (Check out more details here.)

Then, on Thursday, July 16th, Obama became the first sitting president to ever visit a Federal prison. There, he met with six, non-violent drug offenders who explained their hopes for the future and the obstacles they’ll have to overcome as they eventually re-enter American society.

Obama’s recent push to call attention to the failings of our justice system may just be working.

While there is still a wide divide between philosophies on justice and a general overuse of rhetoric which calls for politicians to be “tough on crime”, there is currently bipartisan support for bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate which would reduce the number of low-level drug offenders in prison by reforming prison sentencing and creating pathways for early release.

During his speech to the NAACP, Obama made an impassioned plea that all Americans should pay attention to if they desire to make common sense changes to make our criminal justice system more fair and effective.

“While the people in our prisons have made some mistakes, and sometimes big mistakes, they are also Americans. And we have to make sure that as they do their time, and pay back their debt to society, that we are increasing the possibility that they can turn their lives around.”

July 22, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 135

By Bill Humphrey July 22, 2015 - 8:00 am July 22, 2015 Radio Show

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

Topics: Wages in America; Iran nuclear deal. People: Bill, Kelley, Nate, and Greg. Produced: July 20th, 2015.

Discussion Points:

– A unified econo-moral argument for the necessity of dramatically higher U.S. wages tied to productivity gains.
– Why the Iran deal is a good one (and why Iran’s nuclear program is not our biggest concern in the region).

Episode 135 (55 min):
AFD 135