NEWSRACISM

More than a month has passed since Marilyn Davenport, an elected official with the Republican Party of Orange County, Calif., mass emailed a photo of President Obama and his parents as chimps with the caption: “Now you know why – no birth certificate.”

Despite repeated calls for her resignation from both the public and fellow Republicans, Davenport has not stepped down for sending the racist email. And because she’s an elected official, the O.C. Republican Party cannot force her to resign, although the group officially censured her for her behavior in early May.

Davenport needs to be held responsible for her actions. Change members have not only driven petitions asking that Davenport step down but also asked the O.C. Republican Party’s donors to withhold additional financial contributions to the group until Davenport leaves. In two weeks, nearly 450 people have signed the petition, making it crystal clear that the public wants Davenport to go.

When a few passengers on an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight, a carrier run by Delta, noticed two imams dressed in Islamic garb on their flight on Friday, they asked that the passengers be removed.

So what did the pilot do? He went right ahead and kicked the Muslim passengers off the flight!

Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul, who hold high religious positions in the Muslim community, were heading from Tennessee to North Carolina when the incident occurred. According to Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations, the men "went through security, even went through secondary security, and got on the plane."

The plane was taxiing out when the passengers complained that they were uncomfortable with the men being on their flight.

In an ironic twist of fate, the men were headed to North Carolina for a conference on prejudice against Muslims, or Islamaphobia.

First things first: who’s Marilyn Davenport?

Marilyn Davenport is the elected member of the Orange County Republican Party's Central Committee, who on April 15 emailed out a photo of President Obama and his parents as chimps with the caption: “Now you know why – No birth certificate.”

From the get-go, Davenport behaved as if the racist Photoshopped image of the president was no big deal. She initially tried to pass off the email as a joke, but when neither the public nor her colleagues in the O.C. Republican Party bought that excuse, Davenport read a statement of apology at an April 20 press conference. But instead of staying focused on the apology and the people she’d hurt with the email, Davenport continued to deny that the Obama-as-chimp photo was racist and challenged whether the President is an American by birth - the gist of her racially charged email.

It's time to step things up. Join us in asking donors of the Orange County Republican Party to publicly refuse to donate one more penny to the group until Marilyn Davenport steps down.

Racist attacks against President Barack Obama are nothing new.

But when Marilyn Davenport recently emailed a photo of President Obama as a chimp to friends and colleagues, she sparked international outcry.

That’s because Davenport isn’t just anyone - she's an elected official. Her email shocked members of California’s Orange County Republican Party, where she serves on the central committee.

Take OC Republican Party chair Scott Baugh. He told the OC Weekly that he found Davenport’s email “despicable” and “dripping with racism.” The email depicted Obama’s head superimposed on a young chimp posing in a family portrait with two chimp parents. The caption reads: “Now you know why no birth certificate.”

With only 150 signatures sent to Georgia legislatures, a local Native American tribe has successfully used Change.org to get a discriminatory bill dropped!

One of the Creek Tribes, the Kialegee Tribal Town, wanted to come home. Then the Georgia State Legislators tried to prevent Indian Tribes that are recognized by the state from acquiring land for purposes other than casinos.

After the legislators got over 100 e-mails through this Change.org campaign, the House Judiciary Committee signed off the bill as "died in committee."

"We’ve drawn a line in the dirt, and it happens to be our dirt," said Wallace Seabolt of The Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, who started the petition. "We don’t ask anything except to be allowed to practice out culture, our traditions, and to share that... I think Change.org is really great. I’ll be in touch if there are any more things we need to work on.”

These tribes are recognized by Georgia and the bill (SB 62) would have unconstitutionally placed a severe hardship to require them to wait until the General Assembly is in session to get approval for a purchase or transfer of land. Local Native American activists argued, successfully, that such a policy would constitute illegal interference over American Indian tribes and violate the American Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, Subsection 1302(8).

A big congrats to everyone involved, and thanks for taking action!

How many people have Miami Police fatally shot since last July?

Not one, or even two or three, but a shocking seven.

Two of the victims were reportedly unarmed. All were African American, and all of the officers involved in the shootings are Hispanic.

To say that these details have raised eyebrows would be an understatement. The NAACP, the ACLU, People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality, Miami Commissioner Richard P. Dunn II, among many others, joined Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson in the charge to prompt the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the series of shootings. Change.org echoed the call for action last week by publishing an article and launching a petition that’s garnered more than 200 supporters calling on US Attorney Gen. Eric Holder to initiate a federal investigation into the Miami Police killings.

In the popular imagination, the Miami Police force has long been linked to the 1980s TV show “Miami Vice” in which two handsome cops - one black, one white - solve crimes wearing flashy, pastel suits. Fast forward to the present: the Miami Police is still leaving its mark on popular culture, but far from the glamorized way that Crockett and Tubbs did. In a pilot for a reality TV show filmed in January called “Miami’s Finest SOS,” officers stalk the streets to round up African Americans, with one policeman declaring, “I like to hunt.”

That remark has raised eyebrows given that a vocal segment of the Miami community has accused the police department of literally hunting down black men and killing them. In an eight-month period ending in February, Miami Police have fatally shot seven black men, two of whom may have been unarmed, according to the New York Times. To boot, these killings appear to be racially charged. While each victim was African American, each of the officers involved is Latino.

Congressman Gary Miller of California shared a stage in February with another speaker who intimated that marines should kill a group of Muslim-Americans who were gathered for a charity fundraiser nearby. Later on, the crowd from the event chanted a slew of bigoted and racist taunts at people arriving at the fundraiser.

8,500 Change.org members petitioned Miller to denounce these comments, but he hasn’t listened. He hasn’t shown a hint of remorse for his role in the event.

So I hope you’ll join me in picking up the phone, and ask him kindly to issue an apology for legitimizing this sort of violent and hateful rhetoric.

Over the weekend we reported about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's refusal to denounce a proposal to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a co-founder of the Ku Klux Klan infamous for leading his rebels in a massacre of black Union soldiers, with an official Mississippi license plate.

After more than a week of side stepping the issue and telling the state NAACP and others that he would not denounce the notion of recognizing the racist confederate general, the governor, who has presidential aspirations, seems to have felt the political heat and yesterday stated for the first-time that he would veto any measure that seeks to honor General Forrest.

Yes!

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was a traitor, a racist, and some say, a murderer--basically the trifecta of despicability.

Yet, despite this man's heinous history and outrageous character flaws,  Mississippi is seriously considering issuing an official state license plate in his honor.

Hell, while they're at it, Mississippi officials might as well crank out  state license tags honoring Osama bin Laden or Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

The plates, including the one for Forrest, could be marketed as the state's homage to terrorists.