News/Bids/Classifieds
To place your ad, email
Advertising deadlines 12:00 Noon Monday
Hours: Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
advertising@theskanner.com
‘Hi! My Name Is Loco
and I Am a Racist’
Force
continued from page 1
Community
Police
Commission,
which
would be a civilian over-
sight body.
Court oversight would
continue for five years,
but the city could ask to
end the scrutiny earlier if
it has complied with the
said.
Surveillance cameras
and
police-cruiser
videos had captured offi-
cers beating civilians,
including stomping on a
prone Latino man who
was mistakenly thought
to be a robbery suspect,
other community groups
called for scrutiny of the
department after a Seat-
tle officer shot and killed
the woodcarver, John T.
Williams, in 2010.
Video from Officer Ian
Birk’s patrol car showed
Williams crossing the
spokesman for the
American Civil Liberties
Union of Washington
state, was also pleased.
``The city and the DOJ
appear to have taken our
concerns about exces-
sive force, racially
biased policing and
flaws in the
oversight system
s e r i o u s l y, ’’
Honig
said.
``The
imple-
mentation
is
what’s going to
matter.’’
Since
the
beginning
of
2010, the Justice Depart-
ment’s civil rights divi-
sion has previously
reached settlements to
reform police practices
in New Orleans and in
Warren, Ohio.
It has sued the Marico-
pa County, Arizona,
sheriff’s office and the
East Haven, Connecti-
cut, police department
for a pattern and practice
of discrimination against
Latinos and Hispanics.
Talks between Seattle officials and the Justice
Department had been hung up after city
officials initially balked at some federal
proposals for reform
agreements for two
years.
``This city is commit-
ted to eliminating bias,’’
McGinn said.
Perez said the agree-
ment could serve as a
way to help reduce
crime and increase pub-
lic confidence in the
city’s police officers.
``We must continue to
be well aware of the
very raw feelings that
many Seattle residents
continue to have toward
the
Seattle
Police
Department,’’
Perez
and an officer kicking a
non-resisting
black
youth in a convenience
store.
The earlier Justice
Department report found
that force was used
unconstitutionally one
out of every five times
an officer resorted to it.
The department failed to
adequately review the
use of force and lacked
policies and training
related to the use of
force, it said.
The American Civil
Liberties Union and
street holding a piece of
wood and a small knife,
and Birk exiting the
vehicle to pursue him.
Off-camera, Birk quick-
ly shouted three times
for Williams to drop the
knife then fired five
shots. The knife was
found folded at the
scene, but Birk later
maintained Williams had
threatened him. Birk
resigned from the force
and was not charged. A
review board found the
shooting unjustified.
Doug
Honig,
Associated Press writ-
ers Gene Johnson in
We honor the many
accomplishments of African
Americans.
It is our primary goal as a labor union
to better the lives of all people working
in the building trades through advoca-
cy, civil demonstration, and the long-
held belief that workers deserve a
"family wage" - fair pay for an honest
day's work.
A family wage, and the benefits that
go with it, not only strengthens fami-
lies, but also allows our communities to become stronger, more cohesive,
and more responsive to their citizens' needs.
Our family wage agenda reflects our commitment to people working in the
building trades, and to workers everywhere. In this small way, we are doing
our part to help people achieve the American Dream. This dream that work-
ers can hold dear regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, creed, or
religious beliefs.
The Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters
Representing more than 5.000 construction workers in Oregon State.
Do you want to know more about becoming a Union car-
penter?
Page 6 The Seattle Skanner August 1, 2012
Book Review
by Kam Williams
Baye “Loco” McNeil is an African-American who took a most
unorthodox path to discovering, confronting and eradicating the
racism he found within himself. Born in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, he was
raised by parents with a Pan-African ideology, which led to the lad’s
joining a cult as a teenager which preached black superiority.
But after serving in the U.S. Army and earning a B.A. at Long Island
University, Baye ventured to Japan where he would teach English for
8 years. And in the Land of the Rising Sun, he found himself subject-
ed to a vicious brand of bigotry that made him feel like a social pari-
ah.
For instance, none of the locals would sit next to him whenever he
rode the subway, even if the car was crowded. In a chapter entitled
“An Empty Seat on a Crowded Train” he recounts how an overpro-
tective mother had hissed “Abunai!” (Japanese for “dangerous”)
while yanking her 4 year-old daughter back to her feet rather than
allow the child to spend one second
in the vicinity of a “gaijin” (“for-
eigner”) with dark skin, thereby
Hi! My Name Is Loco and I
Am a Racist
indoctrinating the impressionable
young girl in the ways of discrimi-
by Baye McNeil
nation at an early age.
Hunterfly Road Publishing
Such routine displays of contempt
on the part of fellow commuters
Paperback, $17.99
day-in and day-out left Baye in a
392 pages
helpless state of “impotent hate” as
ISBN: 978-0-615587783
if these strangers were spitting in
his face. No matter how much he
tried to ignore it, or play it down as
merely the consequence of a homogenous culture, it still bothered him
because it was clear that white Americans were being treated very dif-
ferently.
He knew that the Japanese had bought into a bunch of stereotypes
about black people which allowed them to think things like: “We
don’t like you. We don’t trust you. We think you’re a bad person, a
pitiful person, an inferior human lacking morality. You steal. You
habitually womanize and rape. You commit violent acts against inno-
cent people like us as a matter of course.”
What is surprising is that Baye wasn’t embittered by all the years of
relentless ostracism, but rather he came to see the empty subway seat
beside him as a gift. For, through introspection, he realized that he had
to work on his own prejudices about whites, Asians and others, and he
evolved to the point where today he takes on racism of any form every
time he encounters it.
A really remarkable and thought-provoking memoir about a sensi-
tive soul’s most unlikely route to a life-changing epiphany about the
true meaning of racial tolerance.