November 13, 2016


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/universities-struggle-with-racially-charged-incidents-after-trump-victory/

CBS/AP November 12, 2016, 6:00 PM
Universities struggle with racially charged incidents after Trump victory

Photograph -- Trump protests
Play VIDEO -- Ugliness persists three days after Trump's election
Play VIDEO -- Furious anti-Trump protesters clash with police in Portland, Ore.


PHILADELPHIA -- A student at the University of Oklahoma has been temporarily suspended and police are investigating a threat against a Muslim student near the University of Michigan amid racially charged outbursts at schools and universities across the country following Donald Trump’s presidential election.

The Associated Press and other local media outlets identified several reports of racist incidents at schools since Tuesday, including a group chat that the Oklahoma student got involved with aimed at black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater.

The chat contained “violent, racist and thoroughly disgusting images and messages,” and Penn is “appalled” its students were added to the GroupMe account,” UPenn President Amy Gutmann said. Gutmann said UPenn police have been working with the FBI. She earlier said officials had increased campus safety and were “reaching out to support the affected students.”

One of the students on the group text told CBS Philadelphia that “it’s sad that in this day that we’re still dealing with racism in this type of way, and out of all places I didn’t think my school would be the school to have to go through it.”

Asking not to be identified, the student said she does feel it’s related to the recent presidential election:

“I don’t think it’s like a coincidence that it just so happened now,” she said.

She said she normally feels pretty safe on campus, but plans to be cautious for a while.

“I think it’s better to walk in groups. I mean on a college campus in general, but especially now,” she said.

University of Oklahoma President David Boren in a statement said the student has been temporarily suspended as the school investigates further.

“It would appear this matter did not originate at the University of Oklahoma, but started elsewhere,” Boren said in a statement.

A number of students held signs showing support around campus, and tried to let affected students know they stood with them in unity, CBS affiliate KWTV reports.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, police are looking into a report of a man who threatened to set a Muslim student on fire with a lighter if she didn’t remove her hijab on Friday. The incident apparently happened near the University of Michigan campus, according to Ann Arbor police Sgt. Patrick Maguire. He added that the department is “investigating it actively ... and soliciting information from anyone who may have witnessed anything.”

A crime alert issued by the university said the woman took off her hijab and left the area. Witnesses told police the man was white with an “unkempt appearance” and “intoxicated with slurred speech.”

Reports of threats, intimidation and racially charged violence have spiked since Tuesday’s presidential election, CBS Detroit reports.

A racial backlash also unfolded after the election of Barack Obama, America’s first black president, in 2008. At the time, police documented alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts were delivered by adults, college students and even children.

Racially charged incidents have also been reported at middle and high schools across the country, including swastikas being found at a middle school in Maryland.

Anti-Trump protests have happened for several days in cities including Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Portland and New York.



The psychological effect of such xenophobic speech as Trump has been indulging in, for his own enjoyment, I think, is clearly infectious. Lynch mobs start with a few people and grow as the perpetrators are not investigated, caught, tried in open court and put into prison. There is a real need for punishment in any legal system, or why should the “rowdy” elements concern themselves with the law at all? That kind of permissiveness is the primary cause behind the growth of the “Sovereign Citizen” groups, militias, etc. who do commit in some cases violence, while passing themselves off as legitimate “political” groups. They’re nothing but outlaws, as in the Old West.

The result is growing and dangerous disorder. In looking into the term “making threats,” I found Google discussions under several sites, often applying only to state laws, and assigning minimal penalties to the harassment, etc. events. I can remember when police would always say to a woman who reports her husband as threatening her “We have to wait until he actually harms you.” Really? Finally a stalker law was made to criminalize threatening words or behavior even without a physical assault. Dangerous people should be contained.

To have elected this “rabble rousing” man as President may have even broader and more violent consequences as time goes on, especially if he does protect evil doers who happen to agree with him politically. These incidents that have been occurring in less than a week’s time after his election make me feel that those citizens who feel deep hatred on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion or gender, and who make either subtle or violent expressions of it, feel empowered now, and I’m afraid that it will tend to grow like a snowball rolling downhill.

The term “politically correct” should be banned from the language. Fair and polite speech and a caring attitude are not “politically correct,” but noble things to which we should aspire in our lives. Unfortunately, such a concept is simply not being taught anymore, either in schools or even in many churches. Some churches are so bound up with their theology about the nature of a deity and the matter of being “saved” from hell, that they are not STRONGLY ENOUGH teaching basic ethics. That’s what the Golden Rule is about, which is where we so frequently fall down. I am not personally as concerned about sex before marriage as I am about abuse of others under any pretext.

Bernie Sanders and Trump both have spoken of the growth of such hostility as we have lately among the working classes, both white and black, as a result of poverty, lack of education and joblessness. Well, we’ve elected Trump now, so let’s see him really produce jobs by initiating infrastructure repair as he has promised. If he will also see to it that a woman wearing a hijab will not be threatened without impunity as she walks across a college campus, that would change my mind about him at least a bit.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again now. Under a just government, hate speech should not be viewed as something that is included in our guaranteed umbrella of “free speech,” because the knee-jerk reactions among too many relatively uneducated and impoverished citizens, especially the borderline mentally ill, to such a stimulus as Trump’s harangues is not more speech, but action. I do want to see at least some jail time, but also mandatory mental health counseling. A drunken and “disheveled” white man today threatened a young Islamic woman with burning of all things, if she didn’t remove her hijab. Unfortunately, he got away and is loose and doing more such things, perhaps.

Besides, I personally feel that highly abusive speech should not be allowed under the Constitution, which needs to be amended in a number of ways, and this is one of those. Fighting words do cause violence and disorder, and should be taken seriously. It’s the very same as “shouting fire in a crowded theater” and should receive at least some punishment. Supposedly both of those are forbidden, but nothing happens to those who violate the rules. How can the Supreme Court continue to uphold such destructive behavior as a basic right in a peace-loving and fair-minded nation? I wonder if the ACLU and SPLC have filed any recent suits on the subject. We need to do that.

Finally, to quote one of my favorite Biblical sayings, "They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind", Hosea 8-7. I believe this is what we are experiencing now. This is not the America I believe in and love. My personal patriotism is, unfortunately, in mourning right now, but not dead or totally without hope. We do need positive action, though. May the DECENT PEOPLE stand up and speak out strongly, because we are at a national crisis point and in danger of some form of implosion.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-plans-to-stop-racially-targeted-ads-appearing-on-site/

Facebook to stop racial targeting of certain ads on site
By BRIAN MASTROIANNI CBS NEWS
November 11, 2016, 3:03 PM

Photograph -- Facebook announced advertisers on the site will no longer be allowed to exclude certain ethnic and racial groups from seeing their ads. DAN KITWOOD, GETTY IMAGES


Mark Zuckerberg: False news stories on Facebook did not sway the election
Play VIDEO
Mark Zuckerberg: False news stories on Facebook did not sway the election

Facebook announced that it will no longer allow its advertisers to exclude specific ethnic or racial groups from receiving certain ads on the site. The social networking site had come under fire for a practice that many viewed as discriminatory.

In a blog post Friday, Erin Egan, vice president of Facebook U.S. public policy and the company’s chief privacy officer, affirmed that advertisers will no longer be able to target or exclude different groups from ads for credit, employment, or housing.

Egan acknowledged that while the company’s “ethnic affinity” marketing service was created so that brands could reach more “multicultural audiences with more relevant advertising,” concerns from civil rights leaders and site users have caused the company to reassess its approach to ads.

“Recently, policymakers and civil rights leaders have expressed concerns that advertisers could misuse some aspects of our affinity marketing segments. Specifically, they’ve raised the possibility that some advertisers might use these segments to run ads that discriminate against people, particularly in areas where certain groups have historically faced discrimination — housing, employment and the extension of credit,” Egan wrote. “We take these issues seriously. Discriminatory advertising has no place on Facebook.”

Just last week, three users filed a lawsuit alleging that Facebook’s advertising practice violates the Fair Housing Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

ProPublica was the first outlet to shed a light on the company’s advertising policies at the end of last month.

The nonprofit news outlet tested the system by purchasing an ad using tools on Facebook to target members who were house hunting but exclude anyone with an “Ethnic Affinity” of African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic.

“When we showed Facebook’s racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman, he gasped and said, ‘This is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find,’” ProPublica’s Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr. wrote.

Moving forward, Facebook said it will build tools to “detect and automatically disable” this ethnic affinity marketing tool for ads offering housing, employment, or credit. Egan stressed that “there are many non-discriminatory uses” of the ethnic affinity tool but that the company made the call to “best guard against discrimination by suspending these types of ads.”

Beyond this, the company is updating its advertising policy guidelines that will require advertisers to declare they will not engage with discriminatory advertising on the site. The company will give these advertisers “educational materials” that will help them “understand their obligations” when placing ads for these services.

“We are making these changes to deter discrimination and strengthen our ability to enforce our policies,” she added. “We look forward to finding additional ways to combat discrimination, while increasing opportunity, and to continuing our dialogue with policymakers and civil rights leaders about these important issues.”



Well, I’m glad to see that FACEBOOK has immediately promised to prevent the situation in the future. Personally, I don’t want to see ANY darned old ads on the site that I’m trying to read, especially if it covers part of the page or INTERFERES WITH THE RUNNING OF WHAT I DO WANT TO SEE. I suppose that’s asking too much!!



ANOTHER SAD STORY –


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-girl-found-inside-shoebox-on-new-york-porch/

CBS/AP November 12, 2016, 10:32 PM
Baby girl found inside shoebox on N.Y. porch
CBS/AP November 12, 2016, 10:32 PM

Photograph -- A 6-week-old baby was discovered on the porch of a Long Island home. CBS NEW YORK


BRENTWOOD, N.Y. — A 14-year-old boy in Brentwood found a 6-week-old baby girl in a shoe box on his back porch Thursday night, Suffolk County police said, CBS New York reports.

On Saturday, authorities still didn’t know who was responsible for abandoning the child two days earlier outside the Long Island house.

Police say a 14-year-old boy who lives there was first to hear the baby’s cries. He found her in the shoebox wrapped in a blanket, with a bottle of milk.

He told his family, who brought the baby inside and called 911.

The teenager’s family called police.

The baby was taken to a nearby hospital where doctors say she’s in good health.

Authorities notified Child Protective Services.



I was out all day today, so I will stop now, but will collect more articles for tomorrow. Best to all.