REDEYE 10/26/16

H.S. students unite against racism
NYT, 10/4 — Aurora, Colo. — Vicqari Horton dropped a knee to the grass. The varsity choir piped out “The Star Spangled Banner….”
…Three-quarters of the 44 Aurora…football players knelt during “The Star Spangled Banner….A thousand miles away, students at…High Schools in Wisconsin dropped to their knees, too.
So have players…in Seattle; in Oakland, Calif….in Camden N.J.; and…in San Francisco. At Omaha [Nebraska], cheerleaders and band members have joined the protest. And in Beaumont, Texas, so have 11-and 12-year-olds from a youth team called the Beaumont Bulls….
Here in Aurora…a group of young people [who]….entered kindergarten about the time Facebook was born, were around the same age as Tamir Rice or Michael Brown....
A 13-year-old…, Damian Chavez, called the decision to kneel a “sign of respect for every black person in the country.”
Gandhi guilty of blatant racism
GW, 9/30 — Academics in Ghana are calling for a statue of Mahatma Gandhi to be removed from their campus because…he was a racist and considered Indians to be “infinitely superior” to black Africans….
…More than 1,000 people have since signed a petition calling for it to be torn down, saying that not only was Gandhi racist towards black South Africans when he lived there from 1893 to 1914, but that he campaigned for the maintenance of the caste system in his own country….
The petition cited several of Gandhi’s writings in which he referred to black South Africans as “kaffirs” (a highly offensive racist slur) and complained that the South African government wanted to “drag down” Indians to the level of “half-heathen natives.”
Gandhi’s grandson….said  “Gandhi must be forgiven these prejudices….
However, the leaders of the Ghana petition….pointed out that the memorial to Gandhi was the only statue to a historic personality on the campus. The failure to honor African heroes and heroines was “a slap in the face that undermines our struggles for…recognition and respect….”
U.S. promotes Saudi slaughter in Yemen
GW, 8/26 — Saudi Arabia resumed its appalling war in Yemen…and…destroyed a school full of children and leveled a hospital full of sick and injured people. The campaign of indiscriminate killing — …a war crime — has now been going on for a year and a half. And the United States bears a large part of the responsibility.
The U.S.-backed war is not just a case of the Obama administration sitting idly by…the destructive spree of historic proportions. The government is actively selling the Saudis billions of dollars of weaponry. It’s re-supplying planes engaged in the bombing runs and providing “intelligence” for the targets that Saudi Arabia is hitting.
Put simply, the U.S. is quite literally funding a humanitarian catastrophe that, by some measures, is larger than the crisis in Syria. “Experts say the coalition would be grounded if Washington withheld its support….”
…Both the Clinton and Trump presidential campaigns have been totally silent on this issue despite their constant arguing over who would be better at “stopping terrorism….”
“…inside Yemen this is not perceived to be a Saudi bombing campaign, this is a U.S. bombing campaign….”
‘Democratic’ Canada mimics U.S. in jailing immigrant children
GW, 9/30 — Canada regularly detains hundreds of children who have run foul of the country’s immigration laws, including some held in correctional facilities and even solitary confinement….
[A] University of Toronto…report…sheds light on the detentions, which range from days to months….
The Toronto report focuses on children — ranging from newborns to teenagers — ensnared in the system. Some are Canadian citizens forced to choose between separating from parents who have been detained or living in detention with their parents as de facto detainees.
U.S. drones continue murdering civilians
NYT, 9/30 — …An American airstrike…killed at least 15 civilians in eastern Afghanistan….[that] had gathered in a village to celebrate the return of a tribal elder from the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were...sleeping in a guesthouse of the elder…. “Victims included students and a teacher as well as members of families considered to be pro-government.”
Racism ‘even at crosswalks’
NYT, 9/11 — …The evidence is overwhelming that racial discrimination remains [pervasive]…in America.
Take something as simple as crossing the street. In one study…three black men and three white men played pedestrians trying to cross a street at a crosswalk. On average, a black pedestrian was passed by twice as many vehicles before a driver yielded….
A Stanford study found that teachers reviewing discipline reports were more likely to favor harsh punishment for a student named “Deshawn” or “Darnell” than one named “Greg….” And black children with appendicitis are less than half as likely to get strong pain medication at an emergency room as white children with appendicitis….
…A study in New York City in 2004…[sent] young black and white men to apply for jobs at 170 businesses, bearing…carefully matched résumés….White applicants were more than twice as likely to get a call back; indeed, a white applicant purportedly just released from prison did no worse than a black applicant with a clean record….
…America’s education system is structured so that white suburban children often get an excellent public education, while inner-city black kids disproportionately get a third-rate education.