Marissa Alexander is another victim of Florida’s infamous Stand Your Ground law, proving that Florida statute 776.013 is not for battered women or people who won’t shoot to kill. When attacked by her husband in her home, with an order of protection in place, Marissa Alexander shot into the ceiling, instead of into his body, to scare him away. She is now sitting in a jail cell, awaiting sentencing for assault with a deadly weapon.
Ms. Alexander is black and a mother of three. She had given birth nine days earlier to a premature infant, allegedly as a result of battering during her pregnancy. She is a licensed gun owner, with concealed carry permit. She was in her own home. Her husband had a documented history of domestic violence. She reasonably believed that her life was in danger and her husband was violating an order of protection.
Fair or Not?: The Snow White Complex
Directed by: M. Hasna M.
“Fair or Not?: The Snow White Complex” is a documentary about Eurocentric standards of female beauty that are held across most (post-Colonial) cultures.
Some of the topics covered: Skin color preferences in relation to class/culture, the media’s role in exacerbating internalized racism, skin bleaching products, exoticism of dark-skinned women, and the phenomenon of tanning amongst White women.
WATCH THIS NOW. WATCH IT.
reblogging to watch later

[TW FOR ANTI-TRANS AND RACIST VIOLENCE AND HATE SPEECH]
SUPPORT CECE MCDONALD!
CeCe McDonald is a young African American transgender woman charged with “second degree murder” after an incident that began when she was violently attacked because of her gender and race.
DROP the charges and FREE CeCe!
CeCe is a creative and energetic person who, before her life was so unjustly interrupted, was studying fashion at MCTC. She had a stable home where she lived with and helped support four other African American youth, her family. CeCe’s family describes her as a leader, a role model, and a loyal friend. She is known as a wise, out-spoken, and welcoming person, with a cheerful disposition and a history of handling prejudice with amazing grace.
Around 12:30 am on June 5, CeCe and four of her friends (all of them black) were on their way to Cub Foods to get some food. As they walked past Schooner’s Bar in South Minneapolis, a man and two women (all of them white) began to yell epithets at them. They called CeCe and her friends ‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ amongst other things.
As they were shouting, one of the women smashed her drink into the side of CeCe’s face, slicing her cheek open, lacerating her salivary gland, and stinging her eyes with liquor. A fight ensued, with more people joining in. What happened during the fight is unclear, but within a few minutes Dean Schmitz–one of the attackers–had been stabbed.
CeCe was later arrested, and is now falsely accused of murder
For a month, CeCe was kept in solitary confinement “for her own protection”; she had no say in this matter. Finally, she was transferred to a psychiatric unit in the Public Safety Facility. It was nearly two months before she was taken back to a doctor to check up on the wound on her face, which by then had turned into a painful, golf ball-sized lump.
Later on, CeCe’s friends were harassed on the street by people they recognized from the scene of the fight. Individuals circled the block that CeCe’s friends were walking on and called them ‘niggers’ and ‘faggots’ and told them to ‘go back to Africa.’ When they attempted to wave down a passing squad car for assistance, the officer driving the car said he would not help them.
Help us fight for CeCe, and for an end to racist, transphobic violence in our communities! Visit our What You Can Do page and find out how to get involved.
REBLOG THIS NOW.

May 22nd, 2008
Killer spared from death hours before execution
(Reuters) - The parole board in the state of Georgia spared a convicted killer from execution hours before he was due to die by lethal injection on Thursday and commuted his sentence to life in prison.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles made its decision less than three hours before Samuel David Crowe, 47, was to be executed, according to a spokeswoman for the state’s prisons.
“After careful and exhaustive consideration of the requests, the board voted to grant clemency. The board voted to commute the sentence to life without parole,” the parole board said.
Crowe’s death would have marked the third execution since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty last month.
Crowe was not present at the parole board hearing in Atlanta. He had already eaten his last meal and was preparing to enter the execution chamber at the prison in Jackson, Georgia, Mallie McCord of the Georgia Department of Corrections said.
In March 1988, Crowe killed store manager Joseph Pala during a robbery at the lumber company in Douglas County, west of Atlanta. Crowe, who had previously worked at the store, shot Pala three times with a pistol, beat him with a crowbar and a pot of paint.
Crowe pleaded guilty to armed robbery and murder and was sentenced to death the following year.
“David (Crowe) takes full responsibility for his crime and experiences profound remorse,” according to Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an advocacy group, who welcomed the board’s decision.
At Thursday’s hearing, his lawyers presented a dossier of evidence attesting to his remorse and good behavior in jail, according to local media reports. The lawyers also said he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms from a cocaine addiction at the time of the crime.
The U.S. Supreme Court on April 16 rejected a challenge to the three-drug cocktail used in most U.S. executions, which opponents claimed inflicted unnecessary pain. Georgia then conducted an execution on May 5.
Georgia has executed 41 men since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973 and this week it had 109 prisoners on death row.
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For a point of comparison.
And an interesting (and completely unsurprising) point of comparison it is.
So he got a stay not because there was doubt he shot is co-worker with a gun and beat the shit out of him with a crowbar and a bucket of paint, but because he was a good boy in jail and was high when he committed the crime.
Duly noted.
They NEED to be validated at every twist and turn. They need you to let them know how open and accepting and good and not-racist they are. If every comment out of your mouth is not validating their existence as a Good Not-Racist…