USA Radical Black

Judicial Watch Sues Department of Justice for Documents Regarding Decision to Dismiss of Lawsuit against New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC — May 25, 2010

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Justice Department to obtain documents related to the agency’s decision to dismiss the claims against several members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense who were accused of engaging in voter intimidation during the 2008 presidential campaign (U.S. v. New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense).

Judicial Watch filed its original FOIA request on May 29, 2009. The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the request on June 18, 2009, but then referred the request to the Office of Information Policy (OIP) and the Civil Rights Division. On January 15, 2010, the OIP notified Judicial Watch that it would be responding to the request on behalf of the Offices of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Public Affairs, Legislative Affairs, Legal Policy, and Intergovernmental and Public Liaison. Read More »

Founder of BET Sheila Johnson ‘ashamed’ of channel

Originally posted in The St. Louis American – re-posted by Admin at USA Radical Black
(IBNN NEWS/May 23, 2010) – Sheila Johnson, the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television alongside her ex-husband Bob Johnson, was asked by The Daily Beast blog what she thought about her groundbreaking network since selling it to Viacom in 2000 for $1.3 billion.

“Don’t even get me started,” says the 60-year-old Johnson, who has since divorced and remarried. “I don’t watch it. I suggest to my kids [a twentysomething daughter and a college-age son] that they don’t watch it… I’m ashamed of it, if you want to know the truth.” Read More »

7-year-old girl killed in Detroit police raid

By the CNN Wire Staff, re-posted by Admin-USA Radical Black
May 16, 2010 3:53 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Aiyana Jones, 7, was shot and killed by police executing a search warrant
* Police believed the suspect in a Friday shooting death of 17-year-old was hiding at the home
* Police official: “All we can do is pledge an open and full investigation and to support Aiyana’s family”

(CNN) — Police in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday expressed “profound sorrow” at the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl in a police raid. Read More »

For Black America, 2010 Looks a Lot Like the 1970s

by Tara Kyle March 29, 2010 08:20 AM (PT) Topics: Race And Ethnicity

When the National Urban League released its annual State of Black America report last week, its message had the unpleasant flavor of familiarity.

At a D.C. press conference, vice president of research Dr. Valerie Rawlston Wilson read directly from the League’s inaugural 1976 report, citing an urgent need for job creation.

“There is a sense of déja vu, particularly back in 1975 when the economy dipped and declined,” the League’s president and CEO Marc H. Morial told The Root.

Back in the mid-70s, when an oil crisis prompted the last great recession, the poverty rate among African Americans hovered above 30 percent. Over the course of that decade, the number of African Americans living in extremely poor inner-city neighborhoods grew by 164 percent, in contrast to just 24 percent for whites. (By comparison, the African American poverty rate was about 25 percent in 2008, before the worst of the recession took hold, according to the Census Bureau.)

In 2009, black unemployment neared 15 percent, compared to nine percent of whites. That’s far above the 1990s low of seven percent. It’s also nearly four times higher than Morial’s target rate of four percent.

Not only are African Americans disproportionately impacted by unemployment, but they also make up a disproportionate share of people out of work from six months or upwards of a year, according to a March report by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee. Read More »