NEW YORK INMATE DEATH RULED HOMICIDE

The numbers don’t lie! US police forces are on a killing spree. In 2024, US law enforcement killed 1,366 people, setting a new record, according to data analysed by Mapping Police Violence. But the true horror isn’t just in the rising body count. It’s in who suffers the most. Black people are 2.8 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than white people.

These statistics and body-camera footage from December 2024 of officers beating 43-year-old Robert Brooks to death while handcuffed raises alarms. 

The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a h*micide, with the autopsy report revealing Brooks died from ‘asphyxia due to compression of the neck, as well as the death being due to actions of another.’

Continued……. Body camera footage shows Brooks restrained on a medical examination table at the Marcy Correctional Facility while officers repeatedly punched him in the face, stomach and groin. Other clips show a prison officer placing something in Brooks’ mouth before striking him and another officer hitting Brooks in the abdomen with a shoe. Unfortunately, the medical examiner pronounced Brooks dead the following day.

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has called for criminal charges against the officers but history tells us the system is designed to shield its enforcers. More than a dozen correctional officers and two nurses have been suspended without pay, and one officer has resigned. Brooks’ son, Robert L Brooks Jr, has filed a lawsuit against the individuals involved in the attack, the then-head of the prison facility, and the commissioner of the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

At the time of his death, Brooks was serving a 12-year sentence and had been transferred to Marcy from the nearby Mohawk Correctional Facility on the day of the incident. The details surrounding Brooks’s transfer remain unclear.

Sources:

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9vy9jz9po

https://apnews.com/article/new-york-prison-death-robert-brooks-lawsuit-be7ca2d6cc2d6f916514010e8d0a577c

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/06/us/robert-brooks-ny-homicide/index.html

https://apnews.com/article/new-york-prison-death-brooks-autopsy-bd9a38fd8940f2b3e210767dec5e11f4

https://ag.ny.gov/osi/footage/robert-brooks

THERE IS NO GENOCIDE AGAINST WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS

If you’ve seen Elon Musk’s recent X posts, you might be forgiven for thinking that pan-African politician Julius Malema is calling for gen*cide against White South Africans.

Musk’s accusations revolve around Malema’s chanting anti-apartheid song ‘K*ll the Boer.’ Oppressed Black South Africans used to sing it in protest against the racist regime, which was dominated by settlers of Dutch origin, also known as Boers.

The song targeted the apartheid system and not individual White people - a point nicely made in this video sketch by content creator Rathbone. He says claiming that the song is calling for the k*lling of White people is as absurd as suggesting that anyone who fought against the Nazis was against all Germans.

Continued……. Rathbone’s argument that the song is neither hate speech nor incitement to gen*cide is supported by a 2022 South African High Court judgement, which ruled that it was simply a struggle song.

In the video, Rathbone also touches on how the apartheid system gave @elonmusk the jumpstart he needed to end up as the world’s richest man. Hence, the tech baron has an axe to grind with those who continue to fight against the vestiges of the racist system.

Credit: Rathbone clips/Instagram

Sources:

https://groundup.org.za/article/judge-rules-kill-boer—kill-farmer-not-hate-speech/

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888589439334584813

DRC PROXY WAR IS ECONOMIC, NOT ETHNIC

Some have tried to justify the Western-backed, three-decade-long proxy mineral war in the Congo, claiming it is an ethnic war. They say the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 rebels, whose capture of Goma city has k*lled nearly 3,000 Congolese and displaced hundreds of thousands in the most recent vicious cycle of violence, are fighting for marginalised Congolese Tutsis.

Despite mounting evidence that the scramble for Congo’s vast resources has caused tensions between the players, people continue to believe it’s an inter-ethnic battle, which only muddies the waters and makes the war seem more complex than it is.

Continued……With such narratives flying about, in Episode 18 of our ‘Pan-African Attitude’ podcast, Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kaballo (@ahmedkaballo on X), journalist Sanna Arman (@sannario_ on X), and journalist Erick Gavala hosted an insightful conversation with Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo (@congofriends), a US-based advocacy organisation. In this clip, he explained why the war in the Congo is one of strategic and economic interests rather than an internal ethnic crisis.

You can watch the complete 6 February episode on our X, Rumble and Patreon platforms.

Sources:

https://friendsofthecongo.org/mission-vision

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/democratic-republic-congo/faced-gun-what-can-you-do

https://cd.usembassy.gov/statement-of-concern-related-to-certain-minerals-supply-chains-from-rwanda-and-eastern-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-contributing-to-the-ongoing-co

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/2/blood-minerals-what-are-the-hidden-costs-of-the-eu-rwanda-supply-deal

http://cdn-globalwitness-production-2.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/archive/files/import/drc_release_uk_final.pdf

https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/DRC%20S%202002%201146.pdf

This week’s word’s of wisdom are widely accredited to Burkina Faso’s revolutionary former president Thomas Sankara (1949-87). They were used on a placard by @naa_akorfaaaaaa (X) during an October protest in Ghana against illegal mining and its devastating environmental consequences.

Throughout Africa, only a handful of businessmen, politicians and their Western counterparts benefit from the continent’s immense wealth of resources, while impoverished local communities suffer the effects of pollution from non-ethical mining.

Sankara reminds us that we could choose comfort for all over luxury for a few.

Source:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9dn8xq92jo

TRUMP: 'U.S. HAS AUTHORITY TO TAKE GAZA'

US President Donald Trump is known for making jaw-dropping remarks that range from threats of war to expansionist ambitions. After returning to the White House for a second term, he announced the US was interested in re-taking control of the Panama Canal, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, annexing Canada as the 51st US state, and buying Greenland from colonial power Denmark.

On 4 February, Trump made headlines by announcing US intentions to occupy and rebuild Gaza during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. 

Continued……While Netanyahu described the idea as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘creative,’ Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq, as well as the six-state Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia) have rejected Trump’s plan, which also called for building towns to house displaced Palestinians in other countries. The Biden administration’s request for Egypt to accept Palestinian refugees had also been rebuffed, given the historic importance of the Palestinian struggle to Arabs as well as the possibility that moving Palestinians out of Gaza would violate their right to their land. The countries have insisted on a comprehensive plan for reconstruction that would ensure Palestinians' right to Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, and Egypt has announced it will host an emergency summit to discuss the proposal with Arab countries on 27 February.

Trump said his plan would create ‘a lot of jobs’ and that Gaza would come under US authority. King Abdullah emphasised that finding a solution that ‘was best for everyone’ should be the priority, and he promised to accept 2,000 Palestinian children in need of medical care.

Earlier in the week, Trump hinted that he would withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt unless they agreed to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Jordan, a US ally, already hosts more than 2 million Palestinian refugees. 

The death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has been updated to 61,000, according to the Gaza media office, with estimates potentially reaching as high as 186,000 as of July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal.

Video credit: @cnn

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly9m7kv7lro

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-withhold-aid-jordan-egypt-reject-gaza-development/story?id=118668060

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-netanyahu-press-conference-ceasefire-hostages

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

https://truthout.org/articles/gaza-officials-update-death-toll-to-over-61000-adding-thousands-presumed-dead

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/world/middleeast/trump-gaza-egypt-jordan.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/09/egypt-announces-emergency-arab-summit-after-trumps-gaza-plan-infuriates-key-allies.html

https://reason.com/2025/01/27/trump-revives-bidens-failed-proposal-to-remove-palestinians-from-gaza

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/9/saudi-arabia-slams-netanyahus-suggestion-it-should-host-palestinian-state

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/02/09/netanyahu-says-we-ll-do-the-job-of-carrying-out-trump-s-gaza-plan_6737960_4.html

SOCIALISM IS JUSTICE FOR THE MASSES - NYERERE

Poverty represents a profound injustice, and Tanzania could not postpone justice for its citizens in pursuit of economic development. These reflections were expressed by Dr. Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922-1999), Tanzania’s founding president, during an interview with a Norwegian journalist in 1985, the year he stepped down from the presidency. Affectionately known as ‘Mwalimu,’ which means ‘teacher’ in Swahili, Nyerere led Tanzania first as the prime minister of Tanganyika and subsequently as the president of the united republic, including Zanzibar. Nyerere’s legacy is deeply intertwined with independence movements across Africa, standing alongside notable pan-African figures such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

Continued……He advocated for a socialist economic framework that prioritised the needs of the people, focusing on basics such as education rather than large-scale infrastructure projects. Critics have highlighted alleged shortcomings of Nyerere’s social and economic strategy, termed ‘Ujamaa’ (familyhood), arguing that Tanzania lacked the financial capacity to sustain a welfare system without a capitalist foundation. The 1967 Arusha Declaration, which established the principles of Ujamaa, emphasised human equality, fair compensation for labour and strong state oversight of production means to promote the welfare of all citizens. Nyerere had to deal with historical challenges stemming from British colonialism and the geopolitical minefields of the Cold War era, which impacted the implementation of Ujamaa. All told, his success at nation-building and his personal humility as a leader remain widely recognised. In contrast to autocratic leaders living in luxury at the expense of struggling citizens, Nyerere’s legacy serves as a model of servant-leadership from which contemporary leaders can draw valuable lessons. Video credit: NRK, 1985

Sources:

https://www.kas.de/en/web/tansania/laenderberichte/detail/-/content/ujamaa-past-and-present

https://africanarguments.org/2020/12/tanzania-remembering-ujamaa-the-good-the-bad-and-the-buried/

https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/1967/arusha-declaration.htm

RUBY BRIDGES: THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL WHO DEFIED ALL ODDS

Ruby Bridges made history on 14 November 1960 as the first Black child to enroll at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, an all-white elementary school. Her feat came six years after the US Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in the Brown vs Board of Education case, which declared segregation in US public schools unconstitutional. 

At just six years old, Bridges faced a daunting challenge: Daily taunts by an angry white mob shouting racial slurs. White parents also took their children out of school in protest. One protester also held a coffin showing a Black doll. Yet, Ruby remained resolute, never missing a day of school as federal marshals escorted her. Digital creator and storyteller @myjessstory breaks down the events and why this is such a pivotal moment in Black history.