Palm Springs Will Remove ‘Racist Trees’ Separating Black Neighborhood from Golf Course
The city of Palm Springs, California, announced that it would remove a row of trees blocking a black neighborhood from viewing a municipal golf course.
Palm Springs Mayor Robert Moon and other city officials told residents Sunday they would be removing the line of trees and a chain link fence separating the properties after residents said the trees kept property values in the predominantly black neighborhood down, the Desert Sunreports.
Residents in the area say the trees were planted there in the 1960s as a form of racism — because the invasive tamarisk trees blocked views of the golf course and the San Jacinto mountains, keeping property values low so black families could not make money on their property.
We want in your “HOODS” Damit!
City manager David Ready warned that the tree removal would not happen right away because the full city council would have to vote on the issue. He added that the trees would be down in three months.
The city estimates that the tree removal would cost $169,000.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel stopped by “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Monday night to declare Chicago a “Trump-free zone.”
It was Emanuel’s first appearance on the show since Colbert took over for David Letterman in 2015, and he took the opportunity to escalate his criticisms of President Donald Trump, particularly when it comes to immigration policy.
“Our motto: A city he’ll never sleep in. We don’t want him,” Emanuel said to kick off his segment.
Colbert questioned the enforcement of that rule, particularly with “a Trump hotel right on the river there,” to which the mayor touted his record of opposing the Trump administration.
Emanuel mentioned free community college for students, including so-called DREAMers, who maintain at least a B average in high school, suing the Environmental Protection Agency over U.S. Steel dumping in Lake Michigan, as well as the recent adoption of climate change policies by mayors from around the world at a summit in Chicago.
“Look, Donald Trump is driving forward looking through the rearview mirror and I’m not going that way because I want my city going that way,” he said, gesturing forward, “and I want it to be a Trump-free zone.”
These Peaceful Guys Are Welcome Because They Are On Their Way To College.
“He really, never really likes it when I do that though,” Emanuel added.
Colbert then questioned Chicago’s status as a “sanctuary city,” a term used for jurisdictions that do not detain undocumented immigrants arrested on charges unrelated to their immigration status and turn them over to federal authorities for possible deportation.
“How is that not sort of a constitutional crisis?” Colbert asked.
Emanuel deflected at first, returning to a familiar anecdote about the arrival of his immigrant grandfather in Chicago 100 years ago, proclaiming that the city that welcomed his ancestors and made him mayor is “the greatest city in the greatest country in the world.”
“That doesn’t necessarily answer my question,” Colbert pushed back. “I’m all for what you’re doing, but I’m just curious how it doesn’t violate federal law for you to do this.”
“Because the police department in the city of Chicago is not supposed to be enforcing the immigration laws of the United States government. That’s what the federal government is for,” Emanuel responded, adding that stricter enforcement of immigration laws would counteract his work “building relationships between the police department and communities” – an area that has been the subject of intense scrutiny and structural reform in the wake of high-profile police shootings like that of Laquan McDonald in 2014.
“I’m not driving a wedge – that is what Donald Trump wants, is a wedge on the philosophy of community policing,” Emanuel told Colbert. “It’s absolutely antithetical to everything we’re trying to do.”
The duo then delved into a rapid-fire question game called “Fast Round” from the mayor’s podcast “Chicago Stories.”
Emanuel chose Cubs over Sox, thick crust over thin, Hancock over Sears, then (begrudgingly) Willis over Sears, lake over river and 16-inch softball over 12 – a Chicago summer tradition that Colbert said “looks like the moon is eclipsing when it comes at you.”
Colbert’s final question for Emanuel centered on Trump’s declaration last week that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, asking why the presidents Emanuel worked for (Obama and Bill Clinton) didn’t do it before him.
“First of all, no Democrat or Republican president would ever do this,” the mayor said, calling it “bad policy.”
“The fact is, for a whole host of reasons, you do not want the United States in the middle of negotiations about a two-state solution,” Emanuel continued. “You know, my father is from Israel, I’ve been to Israel, my son’s been Bar Mitzvahed there. This is not what a president should be doing.”
Emanuel landed one final dig at Trump, saying his “bigger worry is that he’s not also moving the nation’s capital to Alabama and I’m really more concerned about what he’s doing there,” in a reference to the high-stakes, contentious race to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ former Senate seat.
Judge Releases 19-Year-Old Charged in Facebook Video Torture of Disabled Chicago Teen
The first of four Chicago suspects accused of beating and torturing a disabled teenager and broadcasting the attack on Facebook has pleaded guilty, but a judge let her off without prison time, a report says.
Brittany Covington, 19, pleaded guilty to a hate crime in court on Friday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The suspect also “pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and intimidation charges. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped additional charges, including kidnapping,” the Tribunesaid.
Despite the guilty plea, Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks released Covington without jail time. Telling Covington, “Do not mess this up,” Judge Hooks imposed 200 hours of community service and banned Covington from using social media and having contact with her co-defendants for four years.
The judge did not assign jail time because, he said, “I’m not sure if I did that you’d be coming out any better.”Hooks insisted that his sentence would give Covington the chance to put her life on a productive path.
Covington is the first of the four defendants who were arrested early this year for the attack posted to Facebook.
In January, four Chicago teens were arrested after police were alerted to a Facebook live video showing the assailants beating and at one point slashing a victim tied up in a Chicago apartment. During the video of the attack, the suspects are heard saying, “F*** white people,” and “f*** Trump.”
The victim turned out to be a disabled white teen from nearby Rockford, Illinois. A GoFundMe campaign was set up for his benefit days after the reports broke.
Four black residents of Chicago – Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper, and Brittany Covington, all 18 years old; and 24-year-old Tanishia Covington – were charged with battery, kidnapping, and hate crimes in connection with the attack.
Chicago police called the incident “sickening.”
“It’s sickening. It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that. I’ve been a cop for 28 years, and I’ve seen things you shouldn’t see in a lifetime,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said. “It still amazes me how you still see things you just shouldn’t. So I’m not going to say it shocked me, but it was sickening.”
Shaun King, a leftist political activist and writer for The Intercept, asserted Monday in response to a Trump tweet that “ungrateful is the new nigger.”
DUDE YOU ARE WHITE
Trump accused LaVar Ball of being “ungrateful” that he was able to get Ball’s son and two other UCLA basketball players out of a Chinese prison after the players were accused of shoplifting.
King wrote that “ungrateful is the new nigger,” catching the ire of Twitter users.
You’re the slave, idiot. A slave to hate and ignorance.
A disabled white man was attacked on a Maryland mass transit bus by an African American who seemed to be blaming the victim for putting his ancestors into slavery, according to police.
The 52-year-old victim was a passenger on a Metro bus in the Washington, DC, suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, when Marquis Evans-Royster, 27, began spitting in his face and hurling racial epithets at him, according to ABC in Washington.
The harassment began almost immediately after Evans-Royster boarded the bus without paying the fare, police said.
The victim, who is homeless and remains unnamed in reports, initially tried to ignore Evans-Royster’s taunts but finally tried to push the attacker away when he began to go through the victim’s pockets while yelling, “You owe me for making my grandmother a slave.”
When other passengers began to try and intervene to stop Evans-Royster from attacking the victim, the attacker threatened to douse them with urine.
The threat caused one bus rider to tell the media that Evans-Royster must also have some sort of mental problem. “Who carries around a bottle a urine?” bus rider Desi Cureton scoffed.
At length, the bus driver threatened to call police causing Evans-Royster to jump off the bus and run away.
Police identified Evans-Royster from bus surveillance video and he was arrested four days after the incident and charged with assault and racial harassment. The attacker already has a long police record including charges of race or religious harassment, robbery, and assault.
Tyrone Kenney, a 70-year-old black man who grew up during the Civil Rights Era, decried the incident.
“It speaks to the state of the times,” Kenney said. “People are desperate, they’re looking for leadership, they’re looking for guidance, but they’re not getting it at home, they’re not getting it from government. It’s a period of time I’ve never seen before.”
Evans-Royster will be represented by a public defender and will next appear in court on October 27.
